R.I.P Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury passed away 5th of june. His "Fahrenheit 451" was as far as I remember the third Sci-Fi novel I read. I think it was back in '71 or so. (The ones before 451 was 1984 and Brave New World).

pibbur who is not illustrated

Fahrenheit 451 was the first sci-fi movie I've ever seen. And it got me hooked on Bradbury's novels.
RIP

I think of all the SciFi writers I've read I put him as by far the best general writer of all of them. I read F451 looking for escape and adventure and was shocked at what I got instead.

His Martian Chronicles stories explore colonialism and make Asimov's Robot novels look simple.

The Illustrated man further expand on ideas in Martian Chronicles and mix in ideas he had with Something Wicked this Way Comes which, like F451, is AMAZING! It deals with issues with happiness and aging.

Finally, his Dandelion Wine, not SciFi, is a fantastic coming of age story, not clicheed like Stand By Me.

I think in Bradbury, like the Westerns of the '50's, you have the maturing of a genre - the human complexities of them outway his peers. Frank Herbert, HG Wells, Rod Serling, Alfred Bester, Philip K Dick - of all those great writers I think only the main works of Bester and Herbert equal or surpass his. None of them are as easy to relate to.

I've never read this book, but quickly understoo its importance.

To me, it is a true classic nowadays out of its sheer message.

I remember being blown away by The Martian Chronicles TV mini-series when I was a kid.

I read a few of his books and liked how they were often a mix of horror & science fiction. This is a great loss.

His stories almost always revolved around aspects of humanity.

And who can forget that one of his stories coined the term "the butterfly effect"?

he actually combines his stories from F451 and the Martian Chronicles in the Illustrated Man. Not neatly of course but its worth a read to see what earth did with all its books.

if you want something neat I used to listen to Old Time Radio on the local country FM channel late at night. One of the programs it played was Xminus1 and its predecessor DimensionX. The complete programs are available on archive.org in mp3 format including a version of Martian Chronicles and other Bradbury stories:

"And The Moon Be Still As Bright", "Mars is Heaven", "The Veldt", "Dwellers in Silence", "Zero Hour", "To the Future", "Marionettes, Inc.", "There Will Come Soft Rains"

http://archive.org/details/XMinus1_A

This is the only reference to Ray Bradbury I have. It is not safe for work.

Übereil

i used to love Ray Bradbury Theatre as a kid, like Twilight zone, tales from the dark side, etc used to scare the crap out of me!

Bradbury (with Verne and Wells) was the first science fiction I read. I distinctly remember the oddness of the Illustrated Man.