Referent by Ray Bradbury Episode #190
Ray Bradbury | February 23, 2024-
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Referent by Ray Bradbury Episode #190
Ray Bradbury
REFERENT
Episode #190 · Written by Ray Bradbury · Narrated by Scott Miller
On an island designed to perfect young minds, every action is regulated and every word carefully controlled. Children are taught not only how to think, but what their thoughts are allowed to shape. For Roby Morrison, that control feels less like guidance and more like confinement, a life where even longing is treated as a problem to be corrected.
When Roby encounters something that should not exist, he discovers that belief itself carries weight. Naming becomes an act with physical consequences. Thought molds form. Desire creates danger. As Roby pushes against the boundaries imposed by teachers and psychologists, the story tightens into a confrontation between emotional need and enforced order.
Referent is unsettling in its restraint, allowing tension to build through quiet moments rather than spectacle. Bradbury explores what happens when authority underestimates the power of imagination, and when a child is forced to learn that wanting something badly enough can be as destructive as it is liberating.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ray Bradbury published “Referent” in Thrilling Wonder Stories during a prolific stretch of short fiction that also produced stories such as “The Veldt,” “Zero Hour,” and “The Small Assassin.” During this period, Bradbury was deeply interested in the collision between institutional control and emotional truth, especially where children were concerned. His work frequently appeared in magazines that favored bold speculative concepts paired with human vulnerability, a combination that made his stories linger long after the final line.
Throughout his career, Bradbury returned again and again to the dangers of systems that prioritize cleanliness, efficiency, and correctness over empathy. Referent stands as one of his sharpest examinations of how language, belief, and authority can quietly shape reality—and how difficult it is to escape once the naming begins.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to Referent by Ray Bradbury — a vintage science fiction story where belief reshapes reality and control collides with imagination.
RELATED STORIES
Few writers shaped the emotional landscape of classic science fiction the way Ray Bradbury did.
Bradbury did not rely on hardware or technical spectacle to make the future feel real. He filled rockets with longing, placed ghosts in small towns, and turned distant planets into mirrors held up to the human heart. Whether he was writing about children seduced by virtual worlds, lonely travelers on Mars, or quiet suburban lives unraveling under strange pressure, his stories pulse with warmth, dread, nostalgia, and wonder.
On The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast we’ve explored Bradbury’s astonishing range. In The Veldt (also known as The World the Children Made), technology grants children terrifying power over their parents. Asleep in Armageddon traps a lone astronaut on a hostile world where even the wind seems alive. Dwellers in Silence carries us across the red deserts of Mars, where hope flickers against ancient ruins.
Then there are the quieter shocks: Referent, which exposes envy and obsession with razor precision. Defense Mech and The Monster Maker, where invention and ambition twist into unintended consequences. Even in collaborations like Final Victim (with Henry Hasse), Bradbury’s touch is unmistakable.
From the cold Martian well in The One Who Waits, where an ancient entity waits patiently beneath the sand for new flesh and new thoughts, to Martian longing in The Visitor, from the biting irony of Changeling to the haunting unease of Death Wish, these selections reveal a writer who could make a single image linger for decades. Explore the stories below and experience the voice that helped define vintage science fiction for generations.
- The Veldt (The World the Children Made) by Ray Bradbury
- Outcast of the Stars by Ray Bradbury
- The Creatures That Time Forgot by Ray Bradbury
- Jonah of the Jove-Run by Ray Bradbury
- Lazarus, Come Forth by Ray Bradbury
- It Burns Me Up by Ray Bradbury
- Defense Mech by Ray Bradbury
- A Little Journey by Ray Bradbury
- Asleep in Armageddon by Ray Bradbury
- The Monster Maker by Ray Bradbury
- Rocket Summer by Ray Bradbury
- The Visitor by Ray Bradbury
- Morgue Ship by Ray Bradbury
- The Shape of Things by Ray Bradbury
- Referent by Ray Bradbury
- Final Victim by Ray Bradbury and Henry Hasse
- Death Wish by Ray Bradbury
- Changeling by Ray Bradbury
- Undersea Guardians by Ray Bradbury
- The One Who Waits by Ray Bradbury
- Dwellers in Silence by Ray Bradbury
- And Then—The Silence by Ray Bradbury
ABOUT THE LOST SCI-FI PODCAST
The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast is the most listened-to vintage science fiction podcast in the world. Ranked the #1 Science Fiction Podcast in 34 countries and heard in more than 190 countries, the show has surpassed 3.7 million listens.
Each episode features carefully selected stories from the Golden Age of science fiction, professionally narrated. Timeless storytelling the way it was meant to be heard.
What listeners are saying:
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Vintage science fiction. Professionally narrated. Carefully curated.
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