The Veldt by Ray Bradbury

The Veldt

by Ray Bradbury

• Word count: 4612
• Page count: 11

The Veldt is a 1950 science fiction short story by the classic science fiction author Ray Bradbury. It is about a couple who become concerned when their children use the virtual nursery to recreate a realistic African veldt.

The Veldt follows George and Lydia Hadley, who live in their ultra-modern Happylife home with their two children, Wendy and Peter. Their amazing house does it all - it cooks and cleans for them, turns the lights on and off automatically, rocks them to sleep, and even has a virtual nursery. Aah - and it is the nursery that’s the beginning of their problems! When Lydia decides that the African scenes the children conjure up in the nursery are a little bit too realistic she and George restrict their use of it. Wendy and Peter, however, are not happy with their parents restrictions, and decide to take matters into their own hands.

The Veldt was one of the first science fiction short stories I ever read, and I was blown away by the cool ideas and dark themes presented in it. Of course that was over twenty years ago, before I had ever heard of a “holo-deck”, and I was instantly in love with the concept. (It seems we are getting closer to a virtual reality room with every passing year.) But could this be the first mention of the famed Star Trek Holo-deck? It may be! Sure, the one in The Veldt uses “odorophonics” and crystal walls with “superreactionary, supersensitive color film” behind them, but it is still the same cool idea - a room that creates a virtual playland.

An excellent story by one of the classic giants in science fiction. If you have never read The Veldt then run, don’t walk, to your nearest bookstore or library and get a copy of The Illustrated Man so you can read it!

They stood on the thatched floor of the nursery. It was forty feet across by forty feet long and thirty feet high; it had cost half again as much as the rest of the house. “But nothing’s too good for our children,” George had said.

The nursery was silent. It was empty as a jungle glade at hot high noon. The walls were blank and two dimensional. Now, as George and Lydia Hadley stood in the center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede into crystalline distance, it seemed, and presently an African veldt appeared, in three dimensions, on all sides, in color reproduced to the final pebble and bit of straw. The ceiling above them became a deep sky with a hot yellow sun.

Where you can find The Veldt:
• The Veldt first appeared in the September 23, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
• It was also included in Ray Bradbury’s famous book of short stories The Illustrated Man. (Honestly, if you are a fan of science fiction short stories I cannot recommend this book highly enough - it is one that is truly worth owning!)
• You can listen to an mp3 version of The Veldt, read by Michael Hansen and Carol Collin of the 1970’s radio series Mindwebs, at the Internet Archive.

Good old Ray Bradbury - who hasn’t heard of him? I guess there are a few people. Well, he has written loads of really good science fiction novels and short stories. You may like them, try them and see. Take a look at the Wikipedia article about this prolific author.

If you liked The Veldt you may enjoy Marionettes, Inc., also by Ray Bradbury.

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