If only there were a Mr. Fantoccini to make us an android copy so we could keep him around…
…we’ll just have to keep reading and getting others to read.
. Yes, it is good to be able to become a living time machine yourself.
And of course…
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/iftndies.htm
I’ll have to read “A Sound of Thunder” today in his honor. Thanks for everything, Mr. Bradbury.
Great speech.
Or hope we actually will be someday; and more.
I never particpate in these sort of threads because I never have anything clever to contribute. Nothing has changed. I do wish a heart felt RIP. Mr. Bradbury’s works are an amazing and integral part of this once young reader’s voyage into the glorious world of literature. You have made an indelible mark, sir.
Bugger, not many Golden Age of SF/F authors around any longer. I loved Something Wicked This Way Comes, F451 and the collection Dark Carnival [I have the reprint with 5 additional stories that came out in 03]
Well, damn.
One of my favorite sentences in all of literature, from “I Sing the Body Electric”:
*Don’t you hear them pass? hover? dance their language? telling where all the sweet gums are, the syrups that make bears frolic and lumber in bulked ecstasies, that make boys squirm with unpronounced juices, that make girls leap out of beds to catch from the corners of their eyes their dolphin selves naked aflash on the warm air poised forever in one eternal glass wave. *
– Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 — June 5, 2012)
Not a surprise, given his age and poor health, but still a shame. A very, very talented writer and a giant of American - hell, world - science fiction. As a young Midwesterner reading his stories, I sometimes felt he was talking directly to me; The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man and The October Country are longtime favorites of mine.
His fierce resistance to censorship was well ahead of its time. Several years ago, I had the chance to listen in on a live phone conference with him, discussing Fahrenheit 451. He was smart, puckish and delightful, of course.
May he rest in peace.
But he is immortal!
For an irreverent way to mark his passing, search YouTube for Rachel Bloom’s earnest plea two years ago to her literary hero, titled “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury.” NSFW, duh.
A giant among giants. In both style and substance, nobody else came close to his genius. R.I.P.
Word, but the guy was 91. It was his time.
Thanks, Ray.
Two links -
An Evening with Ray Bradbury, from 2001.
and Rachel Bloom’s classic tribute, Fuck me, Ray Bradbury. NSFW!Rachel Bloom
I’m going to miss the man who filled my teenage years with ideas.
I had no idea Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ was penned due to Ray’s short of the same name.
Now I know why the song always makes me cry.
Thank you, Ray. I hope bits of you get to go up into space, and I will imagine your re’entry somewhere over the veldts.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Tom Rapp and Pearls Before Swine did an earlier and (I think) much better song based on the story.
I clearly remember the day I discovered * R is for Rocket *on the drugstore paperback rack. I was thirteen or fourteen and had discovered H.G. Wells and Robert Heinlein only a year or two before. That is the kind of memory that sinks deep inside you and becomes a fundamental part of who are you.
Did anyone ever read his account of when, as a young teen, his family moved to LA, and he rollerskated to all the movie studios, looking for the stars?
Oh, my.
Just the MENTION of his name to many people makes them smile and get a faraway look on their faces. He taught our imaginations to reach out, further and further.
WHEN we make it to Mars, and we will, we will–please name something of lasting permanence after Ray. Please.
“Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed,” was my favorite. Probably from Martian Chronicles.
~VOW
Very sad to hear this. Bradbury was one of the giants in the field. The Martian Chronicles was one of the enduring classics of the genre, though I think my favorite story of his was “The Blue Bottle.”
Rachel Bloom can’t get her wish now. 
It’s just Vance and Pohl left, isn’t it?
I actually re-read that within the last week, when I was flipping through a sci-fi anthology.