RIP Ray Bradbury. Many of you, no doubt, cut your teeth on the writing of Ray Bradbury. The man had a knack for stories and more importantly a knack for writing them. He also penned a classic of the dystopian genre -Fahrenheit 451- that the Proglodytes seriously misunderstood and took as societal blueprint instead of a warning. Note to Heaven: Someone witty this way comes.
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I'll have to go back and try reading more of him. I love scifi, but he was never one of my real favorites (Heinlein is #1 for me). I think maybe I got saturated with The Illustrated Man early on ...
BTW here's something interesting for any hardcore sf fans: If you have never seen a movie called Dark Star, watch it, by all means. John Carpenter's first movie. It's very dark humor and very good. What's interesting is that the ending sequence - caution - possible spoiler alert - bears a striking resemblance to the Ray Bradbury short story Kaleidoscope, in many specific details. Bradbury is not noted in the credits, and the rest of the movie is entirely unrelated. I only caught that because I listen to old radio shows at work (anybody remember "X Minus One"?), one of the episodes was Kaleidoscope, and all of a sudden I'm realizing that it sounds VERY familiar! I actually wrote up a couple paragraphs, phrased very discreetly, and added them to the Wikipedia entries for both, but they got taken down - understandably I think!
But yeah, Dark Star, great movie, very freaky, very dark, a sleeper classic.
Big fan of Heinlein . . . especially "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Also a big fan of OTR (Love "X Minus one" and "Dimension X") and kinda glad to find out I'm not the only one!
Heinlein could be absolutely shamelessly sentimental at times. Probably my favorite is The Notebooks Of Lazarus Long -- don't recall the name of the chapter/sub-story, but its where he's married to the "normal"- lived girl on some pioneer planet -- "I can hear the wild geese...they're early this year..." *sniff* just thinking of it...
Ever catch the similarity between the Howard Foundation Families and the Jews? I thought I was imagining things until I finally found a reference that it is indeed deliberate.
Mr. Bradbury was a great guy, always willing to help any library that asked for his support by having a talk and signing books. When calling him for a request it was surprising that he answered the phone - no filtering or agent, just Ray. Amazing. His wit and style will always be remembered - he is part of us all now.
I have read Ray's books for these many years . I have my favorites of his , some I don't get .
His book " Something Wicked This Way Comes " has been perhaps my favorite of his ever sinse I first read it . It describes in a way that only Ray ever could , how the promises of a mad man , to people who have little concept of real truth , leads to their absolute distruction . Mr. Dark , the main character in the story , promised things to people , that he could never give , in exchange basicly for their souls . Most fell , but not all . This is a great book to read and the movie although slightly whitewashed , keeps the essense of the message .
Ray , thank you so much for he great memories .
Was always my favorite too, and thanks to my Mom for turning me on to it and a life-long love of reading.
Neo-7:"Something Wicked This Way Comes"
I might pick that book up, Neo. A man promising the easily-led sheep utopia in exchange for their souls. That sounds like timely reading.
The only Bradbury book I have read is Fahrenheit 451. The liberals love to speak of the coming of a conservative dictatorship banning and burning books in pointing to Bradbury and Orwell. But I stick with my thesis: Communists, Socialists and liberals are the greatest threat to true freedom of speech and thought. I guess it's still not a hate or thought crime for me to write that.
Farewell good sir. This impossible universe bids you good fortune in the next
Bradbury, much like Orwell, could see what was in store for this country if the so called progressives were allowed to control things.
:(. My thoughts has been filled with childhood memories all day long. He was such a brilliant author. There are very few authors out there that can write the way he did.
Looks like God needs a writer in heaven.