NY Times Obit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/bo...pagewanted=all



From above link:

By many estimations Mr. Bradbury was the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream. His name would appear near the top of any list of major science fiction writers of the 20th century, beside those of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein and the Polish author Stanislaw Lem. His books are still being taught in schools, where many a reader has been introduced to them half a century after they first appeared. Many readers have said Mr. Bradbury’s stories fired their own imaginations.

More than eight million copies of his books have been sold in 36 languages. They include the short-story collections “The Martian Chronicles,” “The Illustrated Man” and “The Golden Apples of the Sun,” and the novels “Fahrenheit 451” and “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”


Two of Ray's best quotes:

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

Touch a scientist and you touch a child.

Heinlein, Asimov, and Bradbury were the only science fiction authors I could ever get into. My 8th grade teacher read us some of Bradbury's stories, The Veldt etc.

Bradbury was the better writer of the Big Three, I always thought. But Clarke and Asimov always seemed to have better ideas.

sly allusion to "the Big Three", never heard that before. I've barely read any Clarke at all.

Fully agreed. A 'meh' idea with a great writer will produce a much more memorable book than a great idea with a 'meh' writer. I should say 'meh' writING, actually, as the sun even shines on a dog's ass sometimes.

I haven't read any Bradbury or Heinlein in many years. But after all this years I still have great memories of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451. When I find time I think a reread of The Martian Chronicles is in order; it was one of the first Science fiction books I read. I wonder if a reread of Stranger in a Strange Land would change my opinion of that novel. I thought it grand 35 years ago.

I consider Asimov better than Clarke, but both had splendid themes as noted. I thoroughly enjoyed the intertwining novels of Asimov (the Robot Novels), and his Foundation Series of novels is certainly a highlight of the science fiction genre.


We lost a great one with Ray bradbury.