RIP Ray Bradbury

Writer, screenwriter, and all around inspiration Ray Bradbury passed away at the age of 91.

While he had a long and full life his passing is still sad because he's been an active author for so long it was easy to assume that he was somehow eternal. A never-ending fantasy factory who was constantly working on something new.

He was a prolific author of short stories and novels in the genres of science-fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery. To generations he was the gateway drug to the endless possibilities of genre fiction.

He was for me. I can remember picking up a copy of The Martian Chronicles when I was ten years old, and I was hooked. Soon I was picking up every bit of Bradbury I could find at my local library, combing through the collections of his short stories like R Is For Rocket, The Illustrated Man, and I Sing The Body Electric, and other novels like his dystopian classic Fahrenheit 451.

He never really considered himself as belonging to any one specific genre, preferring to view himself as an "idea writer." He was probably the best "idea writer" in history. If you think you have a brilliant idea for a story, the odds are Bradbury probably did some form of it first. He could turn those ideas into words, and those words into dreams as they went on to inspire other writers and readers.

His passing leaves a tremendous hole in the literary landscape.

Goodbye Ray Bradbury, you will be deeply missed.