[Zagadka]

http://io9.com/5916175/rip-ray-bradbury ... chronicles

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles
Ray Bradbury — author of The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and many more literary classics — died this morning in Los Angeles, at the age of 91.
We've got confirmation from the family as well as his biographer, Sam Weller.

His grandson, Danny Karapetian, shared these words with io9 about his grandfather's passing: "If I had to make any statement, it would be how much I love and miss him, and I look forward to hearing everyone's memories about him. He influenced so many artists, writers, teachers, scientists, and it's always really touching and comforting to hear their stories. Your stories. His legacy lives on in his monumental body of books, film, television and theater, but more importantly, in the minds and hearts of anyone who read him, because to read him was to know him. He was the biggest kid I know."

Karapetian added:

If you're looking for any single passage to remember him by, I just picked up my copy of The Illustrated Man, my favorite of his books. The introduction is entitled "Dancing, So As Not to Be Dead," and there are some great lines about death. My favorite:

"My tunes and numbers are here. They have filled my years, the years when I refused to die. And in order to do that I wrote, I wrote, I wrote, at noon or 3:00 A.M.

So as not to be dead."

I'm an actor, something he was always been really proud of, and told me once, after getting cast in a play. "You're living out my life! You're doing everything I wanted to do but couldn't!" He was such a driving force in my life, but what always fascinated me were his impact on others. How his stories lifted people up and saved them from lonely summers. Who among us was never buried deep in a Bradbury story, lost in his meticulously yet effortlessly crafted metaphor?

[danholo]

Cool guy. Listening to a report about him on CBC Radio right now coincidentally.

[The American Lion]

RIP. Now there is no more from the Gold Age of Sci-Fi: (Asimov, Clark, Heinlein, and now Bradbury)

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[Capitalist]

Exceptions to 451 can be made, riiiiight?

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[Michaeluj]

Another minimalist is dead. I will now shed the smallest tear possible, to honor that writing style.

[The Immortal Goon]

It's hard to exaggerate the impact he had on my childhood.

RIP

[Political Interest]

I do not know who this man is but may he rest in peace nonetheless.

[GandalfTheGrey]

I remember he raised some controversy around the time of the Iraq invasion, can't remember what it was. Thats the last time I heard him in public.

Looking back, 451 seems fairly ridiculous. The idea of a futuristic world in which paper books are the main threat to the controlled flow of information seems quite absurd.

[Capitalist]

^ In fairness Fahrenheit 451 was written at a time when the idea of the internet was yet to be conceived. I also thought it was a bit ridiculous that a society could function without any use of written language.

[Zagadka]

I remember he raised some controversy around the time of the Iraq invasion, can't remember what it was. Thats the last time I heard him in public.

Hm, all I can remember is that he had a spat with Michael Moore over Fahrenheit 9/11.

Looking back, 451 seems fairly ridiculous. The idea of a futuristic world in which paper books are the main threat to the controlled flow of information seems quite absurd.

Given technology at the time and overuse of symbolism compared to modern realism, I think it gets a pass.

[The Immortal Goon]

I actually think that farenheit 451 is the most prophetic of the three great dystopian novels. The extent of social and government control in 1984 hasn't come to pass. Brave New World nailed some social things, and might be next closest, but the wife watching huge screen television and everyone being taken in by petty false reality programming and the whole socializing on a mass scale through bland bits of technological communication is right on. Of course, there aren't literally firemen that arrest you and burn books because you're being anti-social and raining on everyone's parade, but the anti-intellectual attitude of people in power has increased rapidly since I've been alive.

[Joe Liberty]

It's hard to exaggerate the impact he had on my childhood.

RIP

^This. Bradbury's stories (particularly in The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles) were my introduction to sci-fi (or "speculative fiction" if you prefer), which has been a life-long love affair.

RIP