Overview of LeVar Burton Reads — "The Toynbee Convector" (Ray Bradbury)
This episode is the season-13 finale of LeVar Burton Reads, in which LeVar Burton reads Ray Bradbury’s 1983 short story "The Toynbee Convector." Burton frames the story as a fable about hope, human destiny, and the power of storytelling to shape the future. The episode follows reporter Roger Shumway’s visit with Craig Bennett Stiles, the legendary “time traveler” who—after claiming to have visited a utopian future a century earlier—has lived in near-seclusion. The story culminates in a twist that forces listeners to weigh truth, deception, and the ethics of inspiring collective action.
Plot summary
- Roger Shumway, a reporter, flies to La Jolla to interview Craig Bennett Stiles on the 100th anniversary of Stiles’s claimed time-travel journey.
- Stiles is 130 years old but energetic. He’s hoisted his machine—the “Toynbee Convector”—on public display, and the world expects the younger Stiles (from 100 years earlier) to reappear for a brief paradoxical moment.
- In private, Stiles takes Shumway through the convector, shows tapes and “evidence” of a prosperous future, and recounts his global broadcast a century before claiming, “We made it—we did it,” which spurred humanity to rebuild and pursue science and exploration.
- At the appointed moment, no time-portal appears. Stiles calmly admits he lied: he never traveled in time. He fabricated the tapes, models, and “samples” of a utopian future to give humanity a believable vision to chase.
- Stiles explains his motive: widespread despair and nihilism in the late 20th century threatened civilization; a convincing hope was needed to mobilize people away from self-defeat.
- In a final act, Stiles activates the convector and dies (his death framed as his final “journey” into the past). Shumway destroys the fabricated tapes but leaves the machine running as a symbol. The story ends on the implication that the lie worked—humanity built the future Stiles promised.
Key themes and takeaways
- The power of narrative: A believable future-vision can galvanize collective action. Storytelling isn’t just aesthetic—it's a tool that can alter behavior at scale.
- Hope vs. truth: Bradbury forces a moral question—are inspirational falsehoods justified if they save or elevate humanity?
- Self-fulfilling prophecy: By presenting a desirable yet apparently attainable future, Stiles turns belief into effort and effort into reality.
- Ethical complexity: The story interrogates the ethics of deception for a perceived greater good—urgent, unresolved, and deeply human.
- The role of leadership and imagination: One person’s creative act (even a hoax) can redirect cultural momentum and rebuild civilizations.
Notable quotes and lines
- Reference/epigraph idea: Arnold J. Toynbee’s notion—“Any group, any race, any world that did not run to seize the future and shape it was doomed to dust away…” (invoked as the moral engine of the convector).
- Stiles, admitting the hoax: “I lied.”
- On the function of imagination: “Life has always been lying to ourselves… To weave dreams and put brains and ideas and flesh in the truly real beneath the dreams.”
- LeVar Burton’s closing exhortation: “Keep looking up.”
Analysis and questions the story raises
- Does the end justify the means? Bradbury stages a moral dilemma without a conclusive judgment—readers must decide whether the manufactured hope was a noble lie or an unforgivable manipulation.
- When is it ethical to fabricate facts to motivate people? The story probes the boundary between propaganda and civic inspiration.
- Can storytelling be a civic technology? The tale treats narrative as infrastructure—something built and deployed to restructure society’s trajectory.
- The emotional engine: Bradbury links despair (the “fifth horseman”) to societal collapse and suggests that narrative hope is an antidote to nihilism.
Content advisory and context
- Mature themes: despair, deception on a societal scale, and a peaceful but intentional death/“suicide” framed as an act of closure.
- Publication/context: Written by Ray Bradbury in 1983; first appeared in Playboy and later in the collection The Toynbee Convector. The title references historian Arnold J. Toynbee.
- This episode is LeVar Burton Reads season 13 finale. Burton closes by reflecting on science fiction’s hopeful nature and thanks contributors and the Bradbury estate.
Practical takeaways / recommendations
- For readers/listeners: Consider the ethical trade-offs between truth and motivating fiction—use the story as a prompt for discussion rather than to extract a single moral.
- For leaders and communicators: Crafting compelling, believable visions of the future can be more effective than denunciations of present problems—ethics must be considered alongside effectiveness.
- For educators: Use the story to teach narrative’s role in social movements, propaganda, and cultural change.
- Suggested follow-ups: Read Bradbury’s other fictions on hope and human destiny (e.g., The Martian Chronicles) and explore Toynbee’s historiography for background on the story’s title and inspiration.
Production notes and credits
- Host/reader: LeVar Burton. Producer: Julia Smith. Editing & sound design: Brendan Burns. Research support and credits listed in the episode.
- The story reading includes sponsor messages and Burton’s personal reflections at the end, urging listeners to keep reading and “keep looking up.”
- Availability: The story appears in Bradbury’s collection The Toynbee Convector; Burton thanks the Bradbury estate for permission to read it.
If you want a single-line summary: Bradbury’s "The Toynbee Convector" is a morally complex fable about a man who fabricates a glorious future to inspire humanity out of despair—asking whether a lie that saves us can ever be wrong.