Ray Bradbury dies at 91; author lifted fantasy to literary heights

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Los Angeles Times:

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 died Tuesday night in Los Angeles, his agent Michael Congdon confirmed. His family said in a statement that he had suffered from a long illness.

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.

PHOTOS: Ray Bradbury | 1920 - 2012

"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 who is also a Nebula award-winning science fiction writer. "But Bradbury, in the '40s and '50s, became the name brand."

Much of Bradbury's accessibility and ultimate popularity had to do with his gift as a stylist—his ability to write lyrically and evocatively of lands an imagination away, worlds he anchored in the here and now with a sense of visual clarity and small-town familiarity.

The late Sam Moskowitz, the preeminent historian of science fiction, once offered this assessment: "In style, few match him. And the uniqueness of a story of Mars or Venus told in the contrasting literary rhythms of Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe is enough to fascinate any critic."

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012

As influenced by George Bernard Shaw and William Shakespeare as he was by Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Bradbury was an expert of the taut tale, the last-sentence twist. And he was more celebrated for short fiction than his longer works.

"It's telling that we read Bradbury for his short stories," said Benford. "They are glimpses. The most important thing about writers is how they exist in our memories. Having read Bradbury is like having seen a striking glimpse out of a car window and then being whisked away."

An example is from 1957's "Dandelion Wine":

"The sidewalks were haunted by dust ghosts all night as the furnace wind summoned them up, swung them about and gentled them down in a warm spice on the lawns. Trees, shaken by the footsteps of late-night strollers, sifted avalanches of dust. From midnight on, it seemed a volcano beyond the town was showering red-hot ashes everywhere, crusting slumberless night watchman and irritable dogs. Each house was a yellow attic smoldering with spontaneous combustion at three in the morning."

Bradbury's poetically drawn and atmospheric fictions—horror, fantasy, shadowy American gothics—explored life's secret corners: what was hidden in the margins of the official family narrative, or the white noise whirring uncomfortably just below the placid surface. He offered a set of metaphors and life puzzles to ponder for the rocket age and beyond, and has influenced a wide swath of popular culture--from children's writer R.L. Stine and singer Elton John (who penned his hit "Rocket Man" as an homage), to architect Jon Jerde who enlisted Bradbury to consider and offer suggestions about reimagining public spaces.

Bradbury frequently attempted to shrug out of the narrow "sci-fi" designation, not because he was put off by it, but rather because he believed it was imprecise.

"I'm not a science fiction writer," he was frequently quoted as saying. "I've written only one book of science fiction ["Fahrenheit 451"]. All the others are fantasy. Fantasies are things that can't happen, and science fiction is about things that can happen."

________

 

RIP to one of the last great masters of science fiction and fantasy; The Illustrated Man remains one of my own personal favorites.

[Saltbag]

RIP, Mr. Bradbury.

 

I only ever read Fahrenheit 451, and that was when I was 13 years old. I'm certain I didn't get all the meaning. Maybe worth a re-read.

[EveningStar]

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 Book Covers Through Time

[EveningStar]

Ray Bradbury Loved Reagan, Called Clinton a 'Sh*thead'

[raygun]

[Geee]

Recently-Passed Ray Bradbury: "Reagan Was Our Greatest President"

 

Ray Bradbury passed away today. He was an American icon and one of the most important authors of the 20th century. The number of people that he turned on to science fiction is inestimable; his most famous work, Fahrenheit 451, was and is still widely-read by teenagers and often serves as an introduction to the genre. That novel is a classic in dystopian literature and a stunning portrait of a totalitarian government with little respect for freedom of speech and thought.

Science fiction has long been a domain in which authors could sketch out-of-control governments that have little respect for individual liberty, something that the libertarian string of American conservatives can identify with. Bradbury himself had a respect for American conservatism and its stand against government overreach. He himself said that "Reagan was our greatest President." Liz Flock reports:

"I think our country is in need of a revolution," the Los Angeles Times quoted him as saying in 2010. "There is too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people."

On Bush: "He's wonderful. We needed him." - Interview with Salon, 2001

On Clinton: "Clinton is a sh*thead and we're glad to be rid of him. And I'm not talking about his sexual exploits. I think we have a chance to do something about education... We should have done it years ago." - Interview with Salon, 2001

On Reagan: "Reagan was our greatest president. He lowered our taxes and gave the money back to the people." - At Comic-Con in 2010

On Obama: "He should be announcing that we should go back to the moon... We should never have left there. We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever." - Quoted in Los Angeles Times in 2010

 

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kevinglass/2012/06/06/recentlypassed_ray_bradbury_reagan_was_our_greatest_president

[Valin]

RIP, Mr. Bradbury.

 

I only ever read Fahrenheit 451, and that was when I was 13 years old. I'm certain I didn't get all the meaning. Maybe worth a re-read.

 

Bradbury was one of the founders of modern Sci-Fi.

 

 

Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We've been so busy damning ourselves for years. We've done it all, and yet we don't take credit for it.

Ray Bradbury

 

 

One of my favorites! I recall reading this and the light bulb went on!

"I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories."

Ray Bradbury

Today thanks to Algore's Internets ()if you want to learn something, anything it's all out there, and a lot of it is FREE! Free is good, we like free.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU3NF-4z0L4

From Dandelion Wine,

[Valin]

@Geee

 

Obviously he was a fascist!