June 5th 2012 marked the death of the American writer Ray Bradbury. Bradbury was often classified as a Science Fiction writer but in reality he was a fantasist who used some of the tropes of Science Fiction.
Bradbury started his career in the late 30's/early 40's. Virtually every Science Fiction writer of that period who amounted to anything was published by Astounding and its great editor John W Campbell Jr but with the exception of one or two stories Bradbury published in the minor leagues.
And yet as Isaac Asimov said once Bradbury was the non Campbell author who made it big. His books Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles are rightly famous. The Martian Chronicles about the colonization of Mars sounds perfect SF fodder but the Science was, even at the time, outdated and is poetic in comparison to the likes of Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein. Perhaps that is why Asimov described him as Science Fiction's apostle to the rest of the world.
Incidentally Bradbury disliked the internet and he had stopped his books appearing in e-book formats, curious to note that suddenly a slue of his books are about to appear for kindle.
I will admit to not having read a huge amount of Bradbury, I note that the two volume short fiction collection Stories is to be released for the kindle I may have to investigate further.
4 comments:
I was sorry to read of his death as "Dandelion Wine" which seems to get little mention these days is one of my favourite books - well worth reading Pete if you haven't already read it!
not familiar with Bradbury..obviously his trustees may have a different view about electronic reading..
It would be nice if you would take us to the Tate Modern and show us the piece of cake you will have. Please.
The Tate Modern? Not into modern art and to be fair most galleries don't let you take photos :( But mebbe.
But I'll be showing you the Kent Countryside soon!
I'll post photos of the cake if you want!!
Post a Comment