In Memory of Ray Bradbury

I wrote no more than a week ago about having read and re-read Ray Bradbury’s, “Zen and the Art of Writing.”  While the collection has definitely had an impact on my writing since I first got it more than a decade ago, Bradbury’s influence goes much, much further back than that.  I don’t know that there’s a single real writer of sci-fi, fantasy or even horror, amateur or professional, who’s put pen to paper (literally or otherwise) in the last fifty years who can’t say the same, even if it’s once or twice removed.

As a kid, Bradbury brought horror home.  If Vonnegut was the voice of small town America, loud and real and deep, Bradbury was the whisper that carried through the trees on windy autumn evenings of something just outside the purview of the world we know.  And I loved it.

When I got older, he took me off to faraway worlds filled with adventure and, something vastly important and which it seems is so often overlooked in the genre today, he made me genuinely think, truly question the world in which I lived and the direction in which it was headed.  That’s the mark of a master in any genre, and more so in sci-fi and fantasy. 

What’s more, he did what all true artists in any medium who’ve achieved a modicum of success are obligated to do, which was foster the next generations, seeing them not as competition, but rather as new voices which needed to be heard.

Ray Bradbury died last night, at the age of 91.  Whether you realize it or not, if you read, if you watch movies, if you’ve attended school, he’s touched your life in some way.  If you’ve experienced his worlds, go back and do so again.  If you haven’t, head there now and I promise you won’t be disappointed, though you may lose a bit of sleep.

Amazon's Ray Bradbury Page