Ray Bradbury

I was stunned yesterday to find out that Ray Bradbury had died on June 5th. I was also extremely saddened. The world has lost a fantastic writer, a brilliant mind, and a kind man.

I wish I could say that Ray Bradbury made me get into writing, but he did something better. He got me into thinking.

I was introduced to his writings through A Sound of Thunder when I was in eighth grade. Teachers kept slipping his work into their teachings and I was curious. Then, having been assigned to read Fahrenheit 451 during high school, I got hooked. The idea that someone could imagine these worlds, where life and society have fallen apart, was mind-blowing -- especially to a fifteen year old who hated people in general and society more than most. There are other shorts we were fed that I can't remember the titles (and I have a huge anthology of his writings that I'm working through to find them) but I remember how his writings made me feel, how they made me think. I'm still furious that my university never offered the Bradbury class they kept promising before I graduated. Just the thought of being in a classroom full of people discussing Bradbury and his works makes me wistful.

Neil Gaiman wrote a remembrance of Ray Bradbury for the Guardian about the kind of man Bradbury was. How he would give half a day just to talk about writing with a kid. There's not a lot of people who do that these days. Yes, authors will get together with fans for coffee, for dinner, answer an email back with seven pages of answers and discussion, but a whole half day? Well, authors have lives too. I can't imagine any one, author or not, giving someone a whole half day in this day and age. He was extraordinary. The world has truly lost something precious with his passing.