Martin:
As your president, I would demand a science-fiction library,
featuring an ABC of the genre. Asimov, Bester, Clarke.
Student:
What about Ray Bradbury?
Martin
(derisively):
I'm
aware of his work...
From
'Lisa's Substitute', The Simpsons
Acclaimed
science fiction author Ray Bradbury died today.
Once,
deep in my youth, I thought science fiction was about cowboys
battling aliens, and wanted to read nothing else.
Later
I decided science fiction was actually about boffins battling
ignorant hordes and was written by Clarke and Asimov, and I wanted to
read nothing else. I threw away the cowboys battling aliens, and
never missed them.
Later
still I discovered Ray Bradbury. It was insightful and imaginative
and funny and satirical and horrific, it was packed with vivid images
and it speculated not about rocket propulsion drives but the human
condition. Above all, it was literary. Suddenly, there was no longer
any reason why a science fiction writer shouldn't spend more time
constructing a sentence than constructing the plans for a rocket
drive. Science fiction became about widening your mental horizons,
not narrowing your expectations. I threw Clarke and Asimov to the
same place I had thrown the cowboys battling the aliens. I had Ray
Bradbury. I wanted to read nothing else.
Unsurprisingly,
I got past the age of just wanting to read Ray
Bradbury. But throw him away? I have his books on my shelf to this
day. Some things just stay with you...
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