ray bradbury, rip

Ray Bradbury was the first major literary influence in my life. His stories captured my nascent imagination, and I obsessively read the 100 stories collected in The Stories of Ray Bradbury repeatedly (in addition of course, to numerous stand alone anthologies and novels—my collection is extensive). There's not much to say about the passing of someone who has spread their influence through text—one doesn't know much of what went on beyond the page. Luckily, the pages are still here, and Bradbury lives on through his stories, and I look forward to enjoying that life as long as I can see to read.

Other obituaries will mention Fahrenheit 451 and The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles and even Something Wicked This Way Comes; but these by no means exhaust the genius of Bradbury's output. For the uninitiated, I want to emphasize the poetic beauty of "The Anthem Sprinters" and "The Big Black and White Game"; my introduction to chaos theory through "A Sound of Thunder"; the colorful portrait of childhood in Dandelion Wine . . . but really, there are too many to mention, too many for adequate words.