The Bradbury Chronicles

"First of all, I don't write science fiction. I've only done one science fiction book and that's Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it's fantasy. It couldn't happen, you see? That's the reason it's going to be around a long time -- because it's a Greek myth, and myths have staying power."  Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury was well known for the two books mentioned above, but he was a writer who was so much more than just those books (although they are my personal favorites). Bradbury wrote over 500 published works which included screenplays, television scripts, plays, and, of course, novels. His stories touched so many lives in his sixty-plus years as a published author. And though his most well-known works were published in the 1950s and 1960s, he never stopped writing.

Bradbury was born in Waukegon, Illinois on August 22, 1920. His family moved around in the early part of his life, but he ended up settling in Los Angeles by his early teens. He did not attend college, but he earned his knowledge and skills as a writer by spending much of his time at the public library.

“Libraries raised me,” Mr. Bradbury said. “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.” (New York Times article).

In 1943, Bradbury became a full-time writer, and by 1947 he had his first collection of short stories, Dark Carnival, published. A few years later, The Martian Chronicles was published in 1950, and Fahrenheit 451 in 1953. He never stopped writing after that; his last book was published in 2007.

I have to admit that I have not read a lot of Ray Bradbury's work, but what I have read has had a profound effect on me. A long time ago, there was a miniseries made out of The Martian Chronicles, which is a collection of short stories that tell a tale of the colonization of Mars. I don't think the mini-series was really that good, but it made me want to read the book. And the book has always stuck with me. A few years ago, I decided to re-read it, and it moved me just as much the second time around as it did the first. In many ways, this contributed to my love of sci-fi, even though Ray Bradbury did not consider this book to be sci-fi -- which now, as an adult, I see more clearly.

The other book that I love is Fahrenheit 451. I also read this when I was a teenager, and I was so moved by these people who risked their lives to save books that it might even have influenced me, in some subconscious way, to become a librarian. For someone who had loved reading all of her life, it was hard for me to fathom that anyone would want to destroy books.

There are several other books of his that I still want to read, and now with his recent passing at the age of 91 on Tuesday, I am even more inspired to read them. Here are the ones that I am most interested in, along with a few other of his works:

Dandelion Wine (1957) - In 1928, Douglas Spaulding wanders around Green Town, Illinois, with his brother and realizes that he is alive.

Farewell Summer (2006) - Celebrating the final days of summer, thirteen-year-old Douglas Spaulding and his friends declare war on the stuffy older set of their community, an effort for which the boys plot to stop the courthouse building clock as a means of staying young forever.

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) - A story of two young boys who begin to encounter evil secrets when a lightning rod salesman gives them one of his contraptions covered with mystical symbols.

I Sing The Body Electric! (1969) - A collection of twenty-eight classic Bradbury short stories and one poem is set in a variety of locales, ranging from the verdant Irish countryside to the coldest reaches of outer space.

The Illustrated Man (1951) - Eighteen science fiction stories deal with love, madness, and death on Mars, Venus, and in space.

And if you would like to read a more in-depth biography of Ray Bradbury check out The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury by Sam Weller.



"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." -- Ray Bradbury


-- Post by Tracy