Wednesday, June 6, 2012

One Last Call Into The Universe

Ray Bradbury, the world will sorely miss you, sir.

Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, whose dystopian works served as cautionary tales about perilous futures and reflected the anxieties of post-war America, has died at the age of 91.

Bradbury’s publisher HarperCollins confirmed his death on Tuesday in Los Angeles after an unspecified “lengthy illness,” as tributes poured in from fans and family alike for a man seen as one of the genre’s greatest authors.

His most-remembered work, “Fahrenheit 451″ (1953), was a Cold War-era work about the evils of censorship and thought control in a totalitarian state and reached a worldwide audience as a film adaptation by Francois Truffaut in 1966.

“The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me,” Bradbury said in 2000.

“The feeling I have every day is very much the same as it was when I was 12,” he said on his 80th birthday.

In all, the award-winning writer penned nearly 600 short stories and 50 books, including “The Martian Chronicles” about human attempts to colonize Mars and the unintended consequences.

“In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury has inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create,” HarperCollins said in a statement.

He was the last of the big four science fiction masters to depart us for the unknown:  Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, and finally Ray Bradbury.   Some 4 dozen novels over seven decades.  Eat your heart out, Stephen King.

We'll miss you Ray.  Your books got me through many a late night growing up, because I couldn't put them down.

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