The Veldt by Ray Bradbury AKA The World The Children made Episode #176
Ray Bradbury | January 30, 2024-
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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.
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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“A legitimate Top Tier Pod. I can’t do justice to how good this podcast is, truly. The host has an affect and vocal style that’s just perfect. The stories are buried gems, sure, there’s problematic vocabulary but you have to enjoy it in the spirit it’s offered. I LOVE seeing how creative people from 40-50 years ago, imagined how the world would exist. It’s just glorious and I love it.”
— bwdesmo
★★★★★
“Love the stories but especially the presentation - great “cast” of voices with no annoying background music or weird sound effects. I listen to one or two tales every day (trying to catch up on the previous ones).”
— Lee in Ecuador
Vintage science fiction. Professionally narrated. Carefully curated.
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