A tribute To Ray Bradbury – (1920 – 2012)
I’d like to commemorate one of science fiction’s most well-known authors, Ray Bradbury, after hearing about the day of his passing on June 5th, 2012. Bradbury is most famous for his speculative fiction, sci-fi books and short stories, including; Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. First introduced to his work in school with, ‘I Sing the Body Electric‘, I was instantly a fan of both Bradbury and the format of the short-story, for horror and science fiction. Ray often had stories published in sci-fi ‘pulp’ magazines such as Amazing Stories.
At the age of eight I began purchasing and collecting, Famous Monster of Filmland Magazine, where I learned of Bradbury’s influence on one of my favorite 1950’s sci-fi films, Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. The film featured stop animation by Ray Harryhausen and I soon learned of the friendship between Bradbury, Harryhausen and Ackerman. Bradbury also penned the script for Moby Dick (1956) based on the novel by Herman Melville. His stories were often adapted to TV shows including episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone. He also hosted his own TV show, The Ray Bradbury Theater, which I had watched frequently during its run from 1985 – 1992. The last film adaptation of his work that I can recall seeing was A Sound of Thunder (2005).
If you are even a casual reader of sci-fi, you would enjoy Ray Bradbury’s work as he always had a very human and down-to-earth element in his stories. His characters were often regular people doing extraordinary things.
Two books I had owned as a young lad:
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