"Ray Bradbury's Passing" Topic

Ray got his start in the pulps and went on to establish himself as one of the past century's premier writers, specializing in the realms of fantasy and the imagination.

Ray loved dinosaurs, carnivals and rockets. And books!

He passed away this Tuesday on the same day as the extremely rare 'transit of Venus'. I think he would have liked that coincidence.

"Somewhere the saving and putting away had to begin again and someone had to do the saving and keeping, one way or another, in books, in records, in people's heads, any way at all so long as it was safe, free from moths, silver-fish, rust and dry-rot, and men with matches."

TMP link

He railed against political correctness in the arts and the pressure to self-censor. Here's a quote from "Farenheit 451":

"Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere."

He was a fierce critic of thought control, but curtailing speech in the interest of "social cohesion" is no longer considered outrageous in our society. Too bad this generation didn't learn anything from Ray Bradbury.

Ray Bradbury was in my opinion, the finest American writer of Sci-Fi and along with Hemingway, Faulkner and Twain one of the finest American writers ever.

I shall miss him even though of late his outpourings had been thin in number.

All politicians should read Farenheit 451 and 1984, and any who like any of the ideas the heroes are railing against should be disbarred immediately.

of late his outpourings had been thin in number

There's an exquisite short piece about how he came to write Science Fiction in the current New Yorker.

Thank you for that, excellent piece.