1920 - 2012
Today's news of the passing of Ray Bradbury left me in a bit of a funk all day. I can honestly say that, other than the passing of my own grandfather, I have not felt such a sense of loss and sadness. I never met him, nor was I close to him, but he had a lasting and profound effect on my life as a gamer, artist, writer, and general creative person.
Ray's work was the first science fiction printed work I ever read. Before that, my life was TV, movies, comic books and games. I got to know his work well during a high school science fiction literature class where I discovered that the Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451 and so many episodes of TV series had origins in the printed word. We read a lot of his stuff in that class, short stories and otherwise. When it came to the final project for the class, I wrote a sequel to "A Sound of Thunder" which has since been lost to time but who's images and concepts survive today in my other work.
In the end, there is nothing to be sad about other than the passing of a great man. There really is no real loss as he was able to bring us all so much in his time. 91 is a grand old age to live to and I can only hope that I'll get anywhere near that number myself. His work will live on not just in itself, but in the countless people he inspired, not just in fiction and entertainment, but in the real sciences and technologies that saw their spark in the glimmer of his drying ink.
Farewell to a great man...
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I first remember Ray Bradbury's work from being allowed to stay up and watch "The Martian Chronicles" TV series and hearing "The Sound of Thunder" read in English class. After that whenever I saw his name on a spine at the second hand book stall I always picked him up to read about dinosaurs, aliens, giant mushrooms and strange visitors. What he captured for me most of all is the wonder in which we see the world when we are young. That he kept that sense of wonder his entire life and expressed it so consistently is his gift to us all. One that I am very thankful for. So thank you Ray for your tales, and for the humanity and warmth with which they were written.
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