One of the greatest and most important authors of our time, the science fiction giant, Ray Bradbury, has passed away. But his books, particularly the classics "The Martian Chronicles" and "Fahrenheit 451" live on.

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'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'

Some of my favorite stories.

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For the TROUBLED may you find PEACE
For the DESPAIRING may you find HOPE
For the LONELY may you find LOVE
For the SKEPTICAL may you find FAITH
-Frances C. Arrillaga 1941-1995

I was never a huge Ray Bradbury fan, but he was a giant and pioneer in the Sci-Fi field. May he rest in peace.

I think my favorite story of his was a short story about a girl on a new planet where the sun only came out once a year (or something). I don't remember the name of it; we read it in elementary school. It has always haunted me. (She was bullied and prevented from seeing the sun, and she remembered it from Earth, I think.)

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My absolute favourite writer for most of my life. His stories have stayed with me for many decades.

He had a good life, and must have been proud of what he accomplished.

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Dig deeper.

When I read his stories as a kid, I understood for the first time that STYLE matters, and not just What Happens. I remember clearly writing Bradbury-esque stories, many of them, after reading MARTIAN CHRONICLES and DANDELION WINE. I wanted to do what he did: His tales were so beautiful and melancholy and haunting!

I loved his stories from the start because they made me feel things—joy, sorrow, the regret for things slipping away, things lost. And fear; some of the most frightening short stories I've ever read were Bradbury's.

He didn't tell you everything, or drag the strange aliens out into the light of day so you could see the seams in the plastic masks. One of the most chilling stories I've ever read ended with strong blue light shining through the crack under a door into a closet where people were hiding. Then the door opened, and blue shadows loomed. . . . And that is where it ended.

I just realized I used that strong blue light in a similar scene in one of my books. Not consciously at all. As vison says, Bradbury stays with you.

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

When I was a kid, I wanted to write stories that made readers feel the way my favorite authors' books made me feel. I even wrote a dedication for the first book (as yet unwritten). It was a thanks to Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle and Ray Bradbury.

Some of Bradbury's stories were unforgettable, haunting. The mechanized house that kept cleaning itself after nuclear war killed its inhabitants. The butterfly whose death changed history. The carousel that added or took away years.

He fired my imagination and nourished a love for language.

And did you know he wrote the screenplay for the Gregory Peck version of "Moby Dick"?

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Take my hand, my friend. We are here to walk one another home.


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That's because he wrote literature, that happened to come in the form of science fiction and fantasy.

And he had a tremendous sense of honor. I'll never forgive Michael Moore for using the name of Bradbury's most famous book (arguably) for his his film, without having the courtesy of asking him, or even informing him. Even after Bradbury tried to call him and talk to him about it, Moore failed to return the call. As Bradbury said, not just a thief, but a rude thief. That has always stuck with me.

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'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'

I always get a pang when an author dies but they aren't really dead, y'know? They left their voices behind. As long as we keep reading, they will linger.

As for Bradbury himself, that scene at the end of Fahrenheit 451, when Montag has escaped the city and is walking along the tracks with the Book People forever lingers in my head. That thing about the phoenix, and how stupid it is, burning itself up only to rise from its ashes. I like to imagine that Bradbury himself is with them now, marching along the railroad tracks, telling stories...and maybe having a sip or two of dandelion wine along the way.

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When you can do nothing what can you do?

I remember hearing him say he saw himself as the guy in the tribe who couldn't hunt, being nearly blind and not very athletic, but he felt as a storyteller he would have earned his place by the fire.

No kidding.

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Dig deeper.

Well, I guess I have to eat crow. I didn't realize Ray Bradbury wrote Something Wicked This Way Comes. That's a great book and a great (and terrifyingly creepy) movie.

Now that makes me wonder what else he wrote that I didn't realize he wrote.

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That would be "All Summer in a Day", set on Venus. It stuck with me as well.

Bradbury spoke at my university when I was a student, in 1990 or 1991. As I recall, he spoke on the subject of censorship, under which heading he included the strictures of political correctness. I got his autograph for my sister.

Here is a brief remembrance of an editor's work with Bradbury on Fahrenheit 451; the editor, Stanley Kauffmann, went on to become a film critic -- and if I remember aright, reviewed Michael Moore's sticky-titled documentary warmly, not that that means anything.