Forms of Things Unknown

Abstract

Bradbury advanced his visionary role through his keynote address for NASA’s 1987 Goddard Memorial Dinner. Chapter 24 documents how he established a balance between criticism and motivation in spite of his mistrust of the military industrial establishment represented at the event. The chapter also discusses The Toynbee Convector and the importance of the title story, which offers Toynbee’s “challenge and response” insight as the best illustration of Bradbury’s self-perceived purpose as a writer: to show how humanity can shape the future by believing in it to the point of certainty. The chapter concludes with his summer trip to France and his journey to the grave of his uncle Samuel Bradbury, felled by influenza in the final days of World War I.