Posted on 06/06/2012 8:04:35 AM PDT by Iron Munro
Ray Bradbury, the writer whose expansive flights of fantasy and vividly rendered space-scapes have provided the world with one of the most enduring speculative blueprints for the future, has died. He was 91.
Bradbury's daughter confirmed his death to the Associated Press on Wednesday morning. She said her father died Tuesday night in Southern California.
Author of more than 27 novels and story collections — most famously “The Martian Chronicles,” “Fahrenheit 451,” “Dandelion Wine” and “Something Wicked This Way Comes” — and more than 600 short stories, Bradbury has frequently been credited with elevating the often maligned reputation of science fiction. Some say he singlehandedly helped to move the genre into the realm of literature.
“The only figure comparable to mention would be [Robert A.] Heinlein and then later [Arthur C.] Clarke,” said Gregory Benford, a UC Irvine physics professor and Nebula Award-winning science fiction writer. “But Bradbury, in the ‘40s and ‘50s, became the name brand.”
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
As a kid, I read every one of his books while sitting on branch high up in an old willow tree with the sights, sounds and smells of summer and autumn enveloping me.
It was my own personal Halloween tree where I greedily sipped his heady Dandelion Wine.
Those are some of the fondest memories of my youth.
It was because of “Something Wicked This Way Comes” that I chose a Harley Night Train, in honor of the charmingly sinister Mr Dark’s “Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show”.
His magical tales of innocence lost and found are a permanent part of my very being.
I can say that of no other author.
Here’s hoping that Mr Bradbury is enjoying a ride on that miraculous merry-go-round, somewhere.
Enjoyed so many of your books, Mr. Bradbury. Rest in peace, sir.
Amen to that.
Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, now Bradbury. Who’s left? Frederick Pohl ... But he must be 100 by now. Even Lester Del Ray and Andre Norton are gone.
Dim hopes for sci fi’s future.
It just occurred to me that everybody I know who can say the same thing, and that includes nearly all of my childhood and high school chums ... they all grew up to be Conservatives. They also happened to be a core group in the science clubs, honor roll, and honor society. The simpering Liberals I remember were not much for reading and certainly not of books by these three Titans.
They butchered it.
I couldn’t wait until the DVD came out and was -so- disappointed.
The story was infinitely subtle but the movie was a hammer upside the head.
Long time Bradbury fan.
RB was a great spokesman for speculative fiction, he made many an english class more bearable.
RB was buddies with Ray Harryhausen at least since they were both 17 years old!
Freegards
Ray’s friend Stan Freberg put him in this prunes commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEz6AoGxOJc
A few days ago actor Dick Beals passed on; he never went through puberty and kept a boyish look and appearance. I never heard it but I understand Beals starred in a radio
adaptation of Bradbury’s “Hail and Farewell”, about a man
in his 50s who also was stuck in a boy’s body due to a gland
malfunction.
11-22-63 Stephen King book on time travel does seem inspired by the “butterfly effect” Ray wrote about
Frederik Pohl is 92, Jack Vance is 95. There is a very recent interview with both of them interacting together on star ship sofa I believe. Vance is still mad that Pohl edited his intros to the chapters of Demon Princes! Pretty funny. Poul Anderson and Frank Herbert are both gone.
Freegards
On top of all the good news coming out of Wisconsin, we get this story. I think Ray Bradbury was a master writer. I loved his books and his short stories. He will be greatly missed.
Many of his tales are on CD. I bought a bunch from eBay, transferred them via MP3 to a flash card and on long trips, play them over a plug-in device that transmits a short-range signal to an unused radio station on the car’s radio. Sure makes the trip go faster.
Brilliant, evocative wordsmith. R.I.P.
I'm one of them. What a great talent he was.
“The Time Machine”...that’s a chapter from “Dandelion Wine” by Ray Bradbury.
Ironic that Bradbury died on June 6th...somewhere along the way I realized that Douglas Spaulding and his peers would have been the guys hitting the beaches that morning, sixteen years after “Summer 1928 began”.
For your scifi ping list.
Thanks!
I’ll have to look for it in an eBook....
Found an Audible Book version and downloaded. No eBook print edition that I could find.
My 35 year old son is not much of a reader, but spends time on the road listening to audiobooks. I’ll probably get this for him so that he can better understand my growing up time.
The world has changed so much since small town Georgia in the 1950’s.
I expect Pournelle to have some good things to say about him.
Good idea! Thanks.
I'll look for some of those CD's.
I have a letter from Jerry somewhere around here. I wrote him a one-liner, and he sent me back a one-liner that cleared things up. Gotta appreciate an author that writes his fans.
/johnny
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.