On Tuesday night, Ray Bradbury passed away in Los Angeles aged 91 from a long illness. He has penned more than 500 books in his lifetime love with sci-fi fiction and has a massive fan base around the world; which spans more than one generation of readers. He wrote such classics as 'Something Wicked Comes This Way' and 'Fahrenheit 451' which are still read today.
"In science fiction, we dream," he told The New York Times. "In
order to colonise in space, to rebuild our cities ... to tackle any
number of problems, we must imagine the future, including the new
technologies that are required ...
"Science fiction is also a great way to pretend you are writing
about the future when in reality you are attacking the recent past and
the present."
Bradbury didn't embrace technology or the internet; even though he wrote about the future in his novels and stories. He called the internet a scam perpetrated by computer companies, was
disdainful of automatic teller machines and denounced video games as "a
waste of time for men with nothing else to do."
He was a self-educated man; as he never went to college and read his way through libraries and published his first works in pulp magazines to start with. In 1950 Bradbury published 'The Martian Chronicles' - a tale of
Earthlings fleeing a troubled planet and their conflicts with residents
on Mars. It was given a glowing review by influential critic Christopher
Isherwood, which Bradbury credited with launching his career.
In a career spanning more than seventy years, other well-known titles
include 'Dandelion Wine', 'I Sing the Body Electric' and 'From the Dust
Returned' and he wrote hundreds of short stories as well as numerous
poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays and screenplays. Ray Bradbury will be greatly missed in this world of books and sci-fi as we take off into the future he wrote of. I have only begun reading his work - and love it completely - and will definitely go hunting for more of his works to read them all. May he Rest In Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment