Long ago, alone, in the pitch of my desolate roach-infested apartment, facing an uncertain future, I listened to the voices, rapt, immersed in the darkness of this iteration of Kaleidoscope. My life has improved in many ways, but I'm still impressed with the production, the tale's nihilistic undertones, its utter bleakness, and devastating sense of hopelessness and resignation.
Bradbury cited Verne and Wells as his primary science-fiction influences. He identified with Verne, saying: "He believes the human being is in a strange situation in a very strange world, and he believes that we can triumph by behaving morally."[20] Bradbury admitted that he stopped reading science-fiction books in his 20s and embraced a broad field of literature that included poets Alexander Pope and John Donne.[21] He had just graduated from high school when he met Robert A. Heinlein, then 31. Bradbury recalled: "He was well known, and he wrote humanistic science fiction, which influenced me to dare to be human instead of mechanical."[21] During his young adulthood, Bradbury read stories published in Astounding Science Fiction, and read everything by Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, as well as the early writings of Theodore Sturgeon and A. E. van Vogt.
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Thrilling Wonder Stories published Kaleidoscope in October 1949.
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