To Ray Bradbury

My favorite author is dead. Perhaps this is not such a sad thing, as Ray Bradbury lived a very long and full life, was much beloved and respected, and created many, many enduring works of fiction. My first major encounter with his writing was when I was about twelve, and borrowed the audiobook, "The Fantastic Tales of Ray Bradbury," from the library to help pass the time during a long car trip. I spent most of that trip becoming increasing entranced with Bradbury's stories. Each of the eight cassette tapes had a short story or two on each side, narrated by Bradbury himself. One of them, containing "The Illustrated Man" and "Marionettes, Inc," refused to play on my Walkman. However, after trying every other option in the house when we got home, it was coaxed to play correctly on my father's hefty old 70s era portable cassette player, about the size of a briefcase. I just had to keep holding down the Play button to counter one of the cassette spools being a bit stuck, which I did for the entire length of both stories, not minding a bit.

Bradbury wrote about October circuses and robot grandmothers and the terrible beauty of the planet Mars and its inhabitants. He wrote about being a boy in a small Midwestern town, about nightmare visions of the future, about monsters of every conceivable shape and size, from red-faced babies to totalitarian societies that would criminalize the act of taking an evening walk or owning a book. He's best known for his fantasy, horror, and science-fiction, but he also wrote nostalgic stories about American life and childhood. What made much of his work so distinctive was his ability to make any setting, any place feel wondrous and terrifying and full of unseen mystery. His short stories were anthologized in dozens of collections with titles like "R is for Rocket," "S is for Space," "The October Country," "The Illustrated Man," and of course, "The Martian Chronicles." The city library had several of these, but my junior high library actually had more of the older, more obscure volumes, which I happily devoured, along with "Something Wicked This Way Comes," "Fahrenheit 451," and "The Halloween Tree." Many of the short stories became the basis of the anthology series "The Ray Bradbury Chronicles," which was produced for television in the mid-80s.

As this is a media blog, I should talk about Bradbury's multiple brushes with Hollywood. He wrote for "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and he wrote a single installment of "The Twilight Zone," though his own stories often seemed to embody the spirit of that show better than many of the actual episodes. Bradbury also wrote for movies, including the first treatment of "It Came from Outer Space," John Huston's "Moby Dick," and an unproduced sequel to "The Day the Earth Stood Still." There were several adaptations of his work, including "Something Wicked This Way Comes," François Truffaut's deeply troubled "Fahrenheit 451," "The Illustrated Man," the "Martian Chronicles" miniseries, "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit," "A Sound of Thunder," and an animated version of "The Halloween Tree," which I try to watch every year. None of the adaptations ever lived up to the books and the short stories, as it has proven very difficult to translate the richness of Bradbury's writing to the screen. Filmmakers keep trying, though. Remakes of two films, "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Illustrated Man," have been in various states of development for ages.

I regret that I never quite managed to meet the man. In the mid-90s, I remember reading about his yearly appearances at the Los Angeles Festival of Books, but the events were always hours of driving away, and Bradbury's appearances were so popular that there was no hope of getting tickets. By stupendous luck, I was in the audience for his final appearance at Comic-Con, but missed him at the book signing afterwards. I can't imagine what I would have said to him. Probably thank you. Thank you for Margot in the rain on Venus, and Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, and the dark Martians with their golden eyes, and every single member of the Elliott family, but especially Cecy and Timothy. Thank you for the catacombs of Mexico, the dandelions in Illinois, the African veldt in the nursery, and the empty mechanical house in the year 2026. And thank you for inspiring me to try writing myself, though it never amounted to much. Once I got into the habit, though, it proved very hard to stop.

Hail and farewell, my dear old friend. And rest assured that the best of you will surely live forever.
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