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Way in the Middle of the Air [June 2003/2034]
First appeared in Other Worlds, July 1950.
In an unnamed Southern town, a group of white men learn that all African Americans are planning to emigrate to Mars. Samuel Teece, a racist white man, decries their departure as a flood of African Americans passes his hardware store. He tries to stop one man, Belter, from leaving due to an old debt, but others quickly take up a collection on his behalf to pay it off. Next he tries to detain Silly, a younger man who works for him, saying that he signed a contract and must honor it.
This episode is a depiction of racial prejudice in America. However, it was eliminated from the 2006 William Morrow/Harper Collins, and the 2001 DoubleDay Science Fiction reprinting of The Martian Chronicles.
In an unnamed Southern town, a group of white men learn that all African Americans are planning to emigrate to Mars. Samuel Teece, a racist white man, decries their departure as a flood of African Americans passes his hardware store. He tries to stop one man, Belter, from leaving due to an old debt, but others quickly take up a collection on his behalf to pay it off. Next he tries to detain Silly, a younger man who works for him, saying that he signed a contract and must honor it.
This episode is a depiction of racial prejudice in America. However, it was eliminated from the 2006 William Morrow/Harper Collins, and the 2001 DoubleDay Science Fiction reprinting of The Martian Chronicles.
- GenresScience Fiction
11 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1950
1 person is currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
Ray Bradbury
2,586 books25k followersRay Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.
Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).
The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).
The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 18, 2021
Black Lives Matter! To escape racism and bonded labour, many of the African-Americans of a southern town depart for Mars:
“Between the blazing white banks for the town stores, among the tree silences, a black tide flowed.”
Their white masters are enraged, casually express racist ideas in racist terms, and try to force them to stay.
"Every day they got more rights... anti-lynchin' bills, and all kinds of rights. What more do they want? They make almost as good money as a white man."
The black people leave their few and meagre possessions behind, "placed like little abandoned shrines", as if they had suddenly taken up in the Rapture.
Bradbury's good intent is clear, but some of his descriptions rely on stereotypes that sound offkey today ("a round water-melon head").
This story is also published as one of The Martian Chronicles, which I've reviewed in detail HERE.
“Between the blazing white banks for the town stores, among the tree silences, a black tide flowed.”
Their white masters are enraged, casually express racist ideas in racist terms, and try to force them to stay.
"Every day they got more rights... anti-lynchin' bills, and all kinds of rights. What more do they want? They make almost as good money as a white man."
The black people leave their few and meagre possessions behind, "placed like little abandoned shrines", as if they had suddenly taken up in the Rapture.
Bradbury's good intent is clear, but some of his descriptions rely on stereotypes that sound offkey today ("a round water-melon head").
This story is also published as one of The Martian Chronicles, which I've reviewed in detail HERE.
March 1, 2025
Promised Land.
From all points of the South, every colour men, women and children in town stream through the streets like a black river. Their destination, rockets heading for Mars, where a new life awaits them. Some people are not too happy about it, especially Mr. Samuel Teece, a white supremacist.
Well this was intense. I really felt it in my heart for Belter and Silly there, and man did I HATE Teece! Wanted very bad things happening to him, real badly. Still do. Satisfied by the ending, to an extent.
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PERSONAL NOTE :
[1950] [11p] [Sci-Fi] [3.5] [Almost Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
???????? The Martian Chronicles. <--
-----------------------------------------------
La Tierra Prometida.
Desde todos los puntos del Sur, hombres, mujeres y niños de color atraviesan por las calles de la ciudad como un río negro. Su destino, cohetes rumbo a Marte, donde les espera una nueva vida. Alguna gente no están muy contenta con esto, especialmente el Señor Samuel Teece, un supremacista blanco.
Wow, esto fue intenso. Realmente lo sentí en el corazón por Belter y Silly, y hombre, ¡cómo ODIE a Teece! Quería que le pasaran cosas muy malas, con muchas ganas. Todavía lo hago. Satisfecho con el final, hasta cierto punto.
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1950] [11p] [Ciencia Ficción] [3.5] [Casi Recomendable]
-----------------------------------------------
From all points of the South, every colour men, women and children in town stream through the streets like a black river. Their destination, rockets heading for Mars, where a new life awaits them. Some people are not too happy about it, especially Mr. Samuel Teece, a white supremacist.
Well this was intense. I really felt it in my heart for Belter and Silly there, and man did I HATE Teece! Wanted very bad things happening to him, real badly. Still do. Satisfied by the ending, to an extent.
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1950] [11p] [Sci-Fi] [3.5] [Almost Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
???????? The Martian Chronicles. <--
-----------------------------------------------
La Tierra Prometida.
Desde todos los puntos del Sur, hombres, mujeres y niños de color atraviesan por las calles de la ciudad como un río negro. Su destino, cohetes rumbo a Marte, donde les espera una nueva vida. Alguna gente no están muy contenta con esto, especialmente el Señor Samuel Teece, un supremacista blanco.
Wow, esto fue intenso. Realmente lo sentí en el corazón por Belter y Silly, y hombre, ¡cómo ODIE a Teece! Quería que le pasaran cosas muy malas, con muchas ganas. Todavía lo hago. Satisfecho con el final, hasta cierto punto.
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1950] [11p] [Ciencia Ficción] [3.5] [Casi Recomendable]
-----------------------------------------------
July 20, 2018
A story about the slavery in the southern of the United States and how the slaves find the possibility of freedom on a rocket going to Mars. The narrative develops having a personage -a "sir or owner" of slaves and member of KKK that tries to prevent the exit of "his"slavers from the region. He tries to use all the subterfuges: the threat of gratuitous violence, a working document signed with an X, the collection of a debt of 50 dollars...
As Bradbury goes on to narrative, our emotions are moving to anger and sometimes to despair in order to know what will happen. Children, elderlies, entire families of slaves appear in this tale and have their lives threatened.
Besides being a critical story about humanity is also a suspense thriller with science fiction as the backdrop.
______
Uma história sobre a escravidão no sul dos Estados Unidos e escravos que encontram a possibilidade da libertação em um foguete que vai para Marte. A narrativa desenvolve-se tendo um personagem “senhor e proprietário” de escravos e membro da KKK que tenta impedir a saída dos escravos da região. Ele tenta usar de todos os subterfúgios: a ameaça de violência gratuita, um documento de trabalho assinado com um X, a cobrança de uma dívida de 50 dólares...
Enquanto Bradbury vai narrando, nossas emoções vão caminhando-se ora para a raiva, ora para o desespero a fim de saber o que vai acontecer. Crianças, idosos, famílias inteiras de escravos tem suas vidas ameaçadas.
Além de ser uma história crítica sobre a humanidade é também um thriller de suspense com ficção científica como pano de fundo.
As Bradbury goes on to narrative, our emotions are moving to anger and sometimes to despair in order to know what will happen. Children, elderlies, entire families of slaves appear in this tale and have their lives threatened.
Besides being a critical story about humanity is also a suspense thriller with science fiction as the backdrop.
______
Uma história sobre a escravidão no sul dos Estados Unidos e escravos que encontram a possibilidade da libertação em um foguete que vai para Marte. A narrativa desenvolve-se tendo um personagem “senhor e proprietário” de escravos e membro da KKK que tenta impedir a saída dos escravos da região. Ele tenta usar de todos os subterfúgios: a ameaça de violência gratuita, um documento de trabalho assinado com um X, a cobrança de uma dívida de 50 dólares...
Enquanto Bradbury vai narrando, nossas emoções vão caminhando-se ora para a raiva, ora para o desespero a fim de saber o que vai acontecer. Crianças, idosos, famílias inteiras de escravos tem suas vidas ameaçadas.
Além de ser uma história crítica sobre a humanidade é também um thriller de suspense com ficção científica como pano de fundo.
September 21, 2021
A textbook example that you can be a fervent anti racist and still deeply entrenched in a worldview of racist stereotypes. The story is a fine example of Bradbury's trademark sense of invoking an atmosphere, set a scene, and let people's actions tell the story. His sympathy is clearly with the repressed Black people of late 1940'es USA, and yet the languages he uses to describe them is massively cringeworthy.
It's definitely not a story that has aged well, yet it is really well written and a very interesting piece of cultural history. The story was originally part of The Martian Chronicles, which was to a large extent a mirror Bradbury held up to White, 1950-era USA to confront it with its potential for cruelty and destruction. In a sense, this story fits well into that theme, as a reminder that also today, we can be meaning well yet still behave in a way harmful to the cause we intend to support.
It's definitely not a story that has aged well, yet it is really well written and a very interesting piece of cultural history. The story was originally part of The Martian Chronicles, which was to a large extent a mirror Bradbury held up to White, 1950-era USA to confront it with its potential for cruelty and destruction. In a sense, this story fits well into that theme, as a reminder that also today, we can be meaning well yet still behave in a way harmful to the cause we intend to support.
March 12, 2024
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950) | Books & Boots https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2018...
'Civil rights
The Other Foot
Unexpectedly, there is a story strongly redolent of the Civil Rights movement in that it unmistakably set in the Deep South of America, and powerfully supports black characters against the narrow-minded hick racism of white bigots.
This us the second Bradbury story I’ve read which is fiercely critical of white prejudice against black people in America – The Illustrated Man contains the story The Other Foot, in which Mars has been entirely settled by black people, more or less exiled there from America, who have settled and made their own life and are happy. No spaceship has come from earth for twenty years and they think they have been ignored and forgotten.
When a spaceship is sighted, a black man named Willie Johnson recalls all the injustices black people suffered in 1920s and 1930s and 1950s America and whips the crowd up into a frenzy ready to lynch and string up the white folks who emerge from it.
There is real bite and anger in the story which lists in some detail the everyday social, cultural, political, economic and psychological oppression which black people have suffered in America.
Anyway, when the spaceship lands, the knackered old white man who appears in the door tells them there has been a nuclear apocalypse and earth has completely destroyed itself, nothing of civilisation remains. He and his team have patched together the last spaceship on earth and come to ask their forgiveness, come to ask if they will use their (the black peoples’) spaceships, and return to earth and help rebuild civilisation.
The plot sounds pretty silly, but the descriptions of black humiliation left me more shaken than anything else in the book.'
I have no idea where Ray Bradbury got into his Civil Rights Black America dystopia. I've mentioned I hadn't seen this America and I hadn't heard what Bradbury's background was... there must be a story there!
'Civil rights
The Other Foot
Unexpectedly, there is a story strongly redolent of the Civil Rights movement in that it unmistakably set in the Deep South of America, and powerfully supports black characters against the narrow-minded hick racism of white bigots.
This us the second Bradbury story I’ve read which is fiercely critical of white prejudice against black people in America – The Illustrated Man contains the story The Other Foot, in which Mars has been entirely settled by black people, more or less exiled there from America, who have settled and made their own life and are happy. No spaceship has come from earth for twenty years and they think they have been ignored and forgotten.
When a spaceship is sighted, a black man named Willie Johnson recalls all the injustices black people suffered in 1920s and 1930s and 1950s America and whips the crowd up into a frenzy ready to lynch and string up the white folks who emerge from it.
There is real bite and anger in the story which lists in some detail the everyday social, cultural, political, economic and psychological oppression which black people have suffered in America.
Anyway, when the spaceship lands, the knackered old white man who appears in the door tells them there has been a nuclear apocalypse and earth has completely destroyed itself, nothing of civilisation remains. He and his team have patched together the last spaceship on earth and come to ask their forgiveness, come to ask if they will use their (the black peoples’) spaceships, and return to earth and help rebuild civilisation.
The plot sounds pretty silly, but the descriptions of black humiliation left me more shaken than anything else in the book.'
I have no idea where Ray Bradbury got into his Civil Rights Black America dystopia. I've mentioned I hadn't seen this America and I hadn't heard what Bradbury's background was... there must be a story there!
Read
July 25, 2024Not whether I read this in 1969 or 1970.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 26, 2015
Way in the Middle of the Air was a good story but definitely not a favorite. I liked the theme of the tale and and the point of view in which Ray Bradbury saw the future was interesting but other than that, I just wasn't grabbed by it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews