#1 2012-06-06 14:40:38
RIP Ray Bradbury who introduced me to my life-long love of science fiction at a young age. Say hi to Azimov, Clarke, Campbell et al.
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#2 2012-06-06 15:39:21
I remember stealing Dandelion Wine at the age of 11 because I'd thoroughly enjoyed stealing The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man and The October Country. I was momentarily disappointed to discover that I'd filched a book that wasn't sci-fi at all...but I read it anyways, and snatches of it haunt me still. Of all the old "sci-fi" writers Bradbury was the most poetic. The following does NOT haunt me, but it does seem appropriate:
"SO IF TROLLEYS AND RUNABOUTS AND FRIENDS AND NEAR FRIENDS CAN GO AWAY FOR A WHILE OR GO AWAY FOREVER, OR RUST, OR FALL APART OR DIE, AND IF PEOPLE CAN BE MURDERED, AND IF SOMEONE LIKE GREAT-GRANDMA, WHO WAS GOING TO LIVE FOREVER, CAN DIE…IF ALL OF THIS IS TRUE…THEN…I, DOUGLAS SPAULDING, SOME DAY, MUST…"
Ray Bradbury - Dandelion Wine
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#3 2012-06-06 17:40:11
Nobody, and I mean nobody, writes in Sci-fi like that any more. His prose taught me more about poetry than any number of English Lit classes.
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#4 2012-06-06 21:45:48
WilberCuntLicker wrote:
Of all the old "sci-fi" writers Bradbury was the most poetic.
Arguably.
He will be missed.
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#5 2012-06-06 22:08:09
I met Ray at the Syncon event in L.A. in 1972, we were on the same panel and struck up a nice relationship over the weekend. We stayed acquaintances for many years, often bumping into each other at bus stops in West Hollywood & Beverly Hills. (neither of us drived).
He was a kind and generous man, and helped me hone what writing skills I have retained.
Adios Ray.
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#6 2012-06-07 00:51:27
Dmtdust wrote:
I met Ray at the Syncon event in L.A. in 1972, we were on the same panel and struck up a nice relationship over the weekend. We stayed acquaintances for many years, often bumping into each other at bus stops in West Hollywood & Beverly Hills. (neither of us drived).
I was a pedestrian in that vicinity 6 weeks in '77 and didn't spot either of you. No one, unless they were street geeks or destitute peasants, walked in that part of the world. They drove a different car every day, it seemed, trading up when they filled the ashtray.
The written word lost a giant.
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#7 2012-06-07 01:35:45
In 77, I had just come back from a hiatus out to the North Shore on Oahu. Headed to Europe in September 77. I was easy to miss.
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#8 2012-06-07 01:58:19
Kip Russell's comment on io9 is appropriate.
Somewhere in America, a boy tap-dances a on a tuned segment of discarded wooden sidewalk, calling his friends to run over the hills by moonlight...
Out on the Veldt, the animals pause for a moment, as though something unseen had passed through their midst...
Somewhere on Mars, a new silver fire is burning to welcome him...
By the river, a Book stops it's recitation for the day, to remember a fine man who wrote such fine, fine things.
Thanks be, for Ray Bradbury, who taught me that there could be poetry in prose.
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