ATribute To Ray Bradbury fromm the SF SITE

Jason Sturgis is a freelance writer and an avid Sci-Fi and comic book fan. Ray Bradbury is his favorite writer.

Ray Bradbury May Have Passed Away, but His Stories Remain Forever

by Jason Strangis

I thought Ray Bradbury was going live forever. I really did!

So imagine my surprise when I heard that one of the all-time greats of the literary field died on June 5, 2012, at a mere 91 years of age. Well, if the incomparable Ray Bradbury wasn’t going to live forever, I thought he would at least make it to 100.

Alas, no person can escape death, not even the legends.

It’s been more than a year now since Bradbury’s passing and I still can’t believe it.

But I shouldn’t be too sad. None of us in the literary community should be. After all, Bradbury lived a long, rich, full, and incredibly rewarding life with no regrets. He always believed that he never worked a day in his life because he did what he loved most.

“Stuff your eyes with wonder,” Bradbury once stated in one of his novels. “See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream…”

The legacy Bradbury leaves behind is nearly unmatched among the great writers of all time. Immortality is reserved for a select few in their chosen field. In the literary world there’s Shakespeare, Shelley, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Poe among others. Include to that list Ray Bradbury.

Fortunately, we still have Bradbury’s sensational short stories and classic novels such as The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and perhaps his most acclaimed masterpiece, Fahrenheit 451.

A cautionary tale where books are outlawed and burned in a futuristic totalitarian state, Fahrenheit 451 is perhaps Bradbury’s most personal and strongly felt novel. Self-educated in libraries (for he did not go to college), Bradbury wanted to make sure his beloved books would be safe from censorship and perhaps even worse – banning.

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture,” Bradbury once said. “Just get people to stop reading them.”

I can’t help but wonder what Bradbury must have thought about the uprising of video games and reality TV. Of course I know the answer. Forever the rebel and anti-conformist, Bradbury would rage against anything (even the Kindle) that takes the place of good old-fashioned, beautiful books.

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