The Toynbee Convector

The Toynbee Convector
Ray Douglas Bradbury

One of Ray Bradbury’s classic short story collections, available in ebook for the first time.THE TOYNBEE CONVECTOR is a brilliant short story collection from one of the genre’s master storytellers. Several of the stories are original to this collection. Others originally appeared in the magazines Playboy, Omni, Gallery, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Woman's Day, and Weird Tales.Bradbury displays the unclassifiable versatility of his imagination in this collection of twenty stories.

THE TOYNBEE CONVECTOR

Ray Bradbury

Copyright (#ulink_4d18e034-d20a-573e-8696-bb4c67dd7652)

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London, W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published by Alfred A. Knopf June 1988

Some of these stories originally appeared in Gallery, Omni, Playboy, Twilight Zone, and Weird Tales. “A Touch of Petulance” originally appeared in Dark Forces, published by Viking Penguin Inc. The Last Circus and The Love Affair were originally published by Lord John Press.

Copyright © Ray Bradbury 1988

Cover design by Mike Topping.

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014 Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Ray Bradbury asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Ebook Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780007539802

Version: 2014–07–17

Dedication (#ulink_4172851b-f3d0-515d-ac6c-4265a76b1e74)

And this one, with love,

to my granddaughters

JULIA

and

CLAIRE

and

GEORGIA

and

MALLORY

Table of Contents

Cover (#u8e096671-9d57-5028-82d2-38546f998a54)

Title Page (#u5f24dea9-888e-59bd-9eb6-d021ccb41cc4)

Copyright (#ulink_0a45491e-2f41-57c2-babc-5cecdc88a542)

Dedication (#ulink_5820429b-d7ca-5aa0-88ab-e35cbc7bfa62)

The Toynbee Convector (#ulink_85e850d1-7cac-5be9-a999-cc07e2592e95)

Trapdoor (#ulink_11247ed7-bfe4-573b-9752-3731b0d18649)

On the Orient, North (#ulink_72d7c4d8-9ad9-56a1-b698-ce3073499e78)

One Night in Your Life (#ulink_fc71f9b3-26be-5d29-af6d-fa21a0e5e2a5)

West of October (#ulink_de6a85e5-d3ec-561a-af77-54913f67c2c3)

The Last Circus (#litres_trial_promo)

The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair (#litres_trial_promo)

I Suppose You Are Wondering Why We Are Here? (#litres_trial_promo)

Lafayette, Farewell (#litres_trial_promo)

Banshee (#litres_trial_promo)

Promises, Promises (#litres_trial_promo)

The Love Affair (#litres_trial_promo)

One for His Lordship, and One for the Road! (#litres_trial_promo)

At Midnight, in the Month of June (#litres_trial_promo)

Bless Me, Father, for I Have Sinned (#litres_trial_promo)