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Happy Birthday, Ray Bradbury

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beam me up scottie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-22-05 01:41 PM
Original message
Happy Birthday, Ray Bradbury
Edited on Mon Aug-22-05 01:58 PM by beam me up scottie
I'd like to use this opportunity to express my love and eternal gratitude to this great man who opened my eyes when I was a child.

Biography

Ray Bradbury, American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet, was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. Although his formal education ended there, he became a "student of life," selling newspapers on L.A. street corners from 1938 to 1942, spending his nights in the public library and his days at the typewriter. He became a full-time writer in 1943, and contributed numerous short stories to periodicals before publishing a collection of them, Dark Carnival, in 1947.

His reputation as a writer of courage and vision was established with the publication of The Martian Chronicles in 1950, which describes the first attempts of Earth people to conquer and colonize Mars, and the unintended consequences. Next came The Illustrated Man and then, in 1953, Fahrenheit 451, which many consider to be Bradbury's masterpiece, a scathing indictment of censorship set in a future world where the written word is forbidden. In an attempt to salvage their history and culture, a group of rebels memorize entire works of literature and philosophy as their books are burned by the totalitarian state. Other works include The October Country, Dandelion Wine, A Medicine for Melancholy, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric!, Quicker Than the Eye, and Driving Blind. In all, Bradbury has published more than thirty books, close to 600 short stories, and numerous poems, essays, and plays. His short stories have appeared in more than 1,000 school curriculum "recommended reading" anthologies. Mr. Bradbury's eagerly awaited new novel, From the Dust Returned, will be published by William Morrow at Halloween 2001. Morrow will release One More For the Road, a new collection Bradbury stories, at Christmas 2001.

********

On the occasion of his 80th birthday in August 2000, Bradbury said, "The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me. The feeling I have every day is very much the same as it was when I was twelve. In any event, here I am, eighty years old, feeling no different, full of a great sense of joy, and glad for the long life that has been allowed me. I have good plans for the next ten or twenty years, and I hope you''ll come along."
Much more at: http://www.raybradbury.com/


For a listing of his books, collections and poems, see the Internet Book List website: http://www.iblist.com/author87.htm

And if you haven't seen them before, don't miss the videos of a 2000 interview with Ray Bradbury in this series called "At Home With Ray": http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home_clips.html#


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YOY Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-22-05 01:44 PM
Response to Original message
1. One of the Granddaddies om Modern Sci-Fi
That which analyzes the possible future for means of interpreting a turbulent present.
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SmokingJacket Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-22-05 01:45 PM
Response to Original message
2. He was a wonderful writer.
That paperback of The Illustrated Man was essentially my bible as a child. He opened my mind to the possibilities of fiction -- I've been a reader and writer ever since, thanks largely to him.
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YankeyMCC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-22-05 02:03 PM
Response to Original message
3. "If you look closely at the contours of my mind
they will reflect the finger prints of my grandfather."

I'm sure I've botched the quote I don't have my copy of "Fahrenheit 351" handy. But this quote was the reason I placed my original copy of the book (one of my favorites) with my grandfather's body when it was buried.
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beam me up scottie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-22-05 02:07 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Oh Yank.
What an awesome thing to do.
That is one of the most touching things I've ever heard.
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YankeyMCC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-22-05 04:52 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. Thanks here's the real quote
"...in the convolutions of my brain you'd find the big ridges of his thumbprint. He touched me."

BTW: I realized I typoed, "Fahrenheit 451" of course not 351
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Modem Butterfly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-22-05 03:15 PM
Response to Original message
5. Ray Bradbury is extremely talented
Edited on Mon Aug-22-05 03:17 PM by Modem Butterfly
But I could have done without his criticism of Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11. Still, when you've done as much as Bradbury, and lived as long, being irascible comes with the territory, right?

I always loved his short stories, especiall "The Town Where No One Got Off" and "All Summer in a Day".
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Taxloss Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-22-05 07:06 PM
Response to Original message
7. Happy birthday, Ray.
"Fahrenheit 451" was one of the first books to make me realise sci-fi could speak directly to my age; my school was enlightened enough to put it on the cirriculum. "Something wicked ..." left me speechless with awe.
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RebelOne Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 09:33 AM
Response to Original message
8. I have read every one of his books.
Ever since I was a kid, he has always been my all-time favorite author. My favorite novel is The Martian Chronicles.
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beam me up scottie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 09:54 AM
Response to Reply #8
9. I'm surprised more people haven't
posted in this thread.
I went from See Spot Run to Something Wicked This Way Comes.
I could be wrong, but I'll bet Ray Bradbury shaped more young minds than any other fiction author.

I also read every thing he's written.
It may be time to read them all again.
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salvorhardin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-23-05 11:12 AM
Response to Reply #9
10. Ray Bradbury is cool
Edited on Tue Aug-23-05 11:13 AM by salvorhardin
He didn't have a very large effect on me though. After going through the usual second and third grade reading (C.S. Lewis, Madeline L'Engle) which I loved (didn't understand the Christian symbolism then) and having "Mrs. Pickles Goes To Mars" (or some such nonsense) foisted on me by the school librarian the village librarian at the time, who happened to be a very hip, progressive lady, hooked me up with Heinlein's Have Spacesuit Will Travel.

I think it was only a couple of months before I went through every single Heinlein juvenile (my library had a full set of original edition Heinlein juveniles -- I was heartbroken when they threw them out). At that point the librarian let me have access to the adult section of the library and then it was Heinlein, Asimov, Pohl... I was hooked on hard scifi for life. Thanks Mrs. Pollock wherever you are!
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omega minimo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 12:10 AM
Response to Original message
11. Great art, too!
Today I wuz thinking we are living in a Kurt Vonnegut world...

Certainly Mr. Bradbury left his big thumbridges in our turbulent present, since the contours of our minds were limned by him with possible futures.

(Hi Beam! :hi:)
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beam me up scottie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 12:46 AM
Response to Reply #11
12. Hi Omega!
Another Bradbury fan, I should have known! :7

The greats of science fiction should be required reading for grade schoolers.

H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau shattered my child's world.
How horrible and divine.
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omega minimo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 12:52 AM
Response to Reply #12
13. Well considering A Wrinkle In Time is on the book-banning list......
when I see a used copy, I always do a "book rescue."

B-)
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Lydia Leftcoast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 10:44 PM
Response to Original message
14. As one who believes that we need to have a less auto-centric society,
I've always appreciated his refusal to learn to drive. :-)
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sakabatou Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-24-05 11:29 PM
Response to Original message
15. R is for Rocket, S is for Space
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kevin881 Donating Member (429 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-13-05 09:35 PM
Response to Original message
16. too bad he was such a dick about MM's F911 -nt
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-14-05 02:38 AM
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17. Deleted message
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