The Veldt by Ray Bradbury AKA The World The Children made Episode #176

Ray Bradbury | January 30, 2024

The Veldt by Ray Bradbury AKA The World The Children made Episode #176
Ray Bradbury

THE VELDT

Episode #176 · Written by Ray Bradbury · Narrated by Scott Miller

A high-tech nursery meant to delight two children instead begins to mirror something far darker in their minds. As the African veldt grows more lifelike, their parents sense a simmering danger they can no longer ignore.

The Hadley family has everything modern convenience can offer: a fully automated Happylife Home that cooks, cleans, ties shoes, and rocks them to sleep. But the home’s most impressive feature is the nursery—a towering, immersive chamber that brings any landscape a child can imagine to life. Lately, though, Wendy and Peter’s imaginations seem stuck on a single vision: a blistering African veldt filled with lions, vultures, and the lingering echo of distant screams.

George and Lydia Hadley sense that something is wrong, but they can’t articulate why the room feels less like entertainment and more like a warning. As the veldt grows more vivid, more persistent, and more revealing, the parents must face the consequences of a house that has quietly replaced them in their children’s lives. Bradbury uses the nursery’s realism to explore fear, dependency, and the emotional distance created by too much comfort—and he does it with his signature blend of imagination and tension.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ray Bradbury stands among the greatest storytellers in science fiction history. Though widely known for works like Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, his short stories remain some of his most enduring contributions to the genre. Bradbury had a rare talent for fusing lyrical prose with technological unease, examining not just what machines can do, but what they do to us. “The Veldt,” first published in 1950, is a prime example of his early mastery—highlighting the emotional cost of convenience, the fragility of family bonds, and the unexpected dangers of letting imagination run unchecked.

Bradbury’s influence reaches far beyond literature. His ideas helped shape film, television, and popular culture, inspiring generations of storytellers to explore the human heart within futuristic worlds. As both a futurist and a traditionalist, he challenged readers to consider how much freedom we trade away when we embrace ease and automation. “The Veldt” remains a vivid reminder that even the most wondrous technology cannot replace the need for connection, guidance, and genuine human presence.

LISTEN TO THE STORY

Listen to The Veldt by Ray Bradbury — a tense tale of a futuristic nursery and a family pushed to the brink in this unforgettable piece of classic science fiction.