It was interesting to see the collective grief in the nerdosphere today with regards to the death of Ray Bradbury. Until yesterday, most of the talk around Bradbury had been heavily critical for some time. After all, he wasn't a real science fiction writer, and you know fans—when a topic comes up they can mostly just repeat their canned opinions over and over. He's not a real science fiction writer...never mind that by the implicit definition of "science fiction" in that claim, there are only a handful of actual SF stories. The sometimes lyrical writing and the often eligiac tone didn't always fly with the skiffy crowd—good thing Bradbury had the zillion-dollar slicks to fall back on during his prime. When I've mentioned Bradbury positively before today here on LJ, I've gotten any number of bemused responses. Then there was the girlfriend (a writer!) who declared that she'd never read him and received this:
![]()
At the last minute I managed to not include the note reading, "Don't even talk to me again until you're done!", because The 100 is a pretty long book, and plus it was Christmas.
Bradbury suffered from being more often taught than read these days. One generation's cult fiction is always the next generation's required reading, mainly because English teachers are often barely reformed social misfits who want to resolve their own childhood troubles with bullies and loneliness by engineering the future with the blunt hammer of syllabi. He wrote every day and when he couldn't manage that anymore, he had his daughter transcribe his compositions over the phone, but of the many many remarks you've read today, who mentioned anything of a more recent vintage than the script to Moby-Dick (1965)? I would have expected at least one or two mentions from From the Dust Returned, his 2001 "novel"—a fix-up of old Elliott family stories, but still something I would have guessed was read fairly widely. But no. It was mostly just school days stuff today.
Then there's the fact that Bradbury had a stroke back in 1999—since then he's been a regular on the slow news day circuit. Did you know that Bradbury watched Fox News all morning? (And, of course, that Fox News is a brainwashing outfit that nobody but people who complain about it constantly are immune to.) And he wanted Obama to build a Mars base, but also keep government small. Ha-ha, he was so inexplicably stupid, the old white prune! What was he, brain damaged or some...oh. What else—he didn't like Head Start, liked George W. Bush on some policy positions, and announced a few times that the theme of Fahrenheit 451 was the evil of television and not state censorship. It's not that Bradbury necessarily went all that crazy after his stroke; he was just fairly easy to squeeze for juicy quotes. Especially about "hating the Internet", which is the last great taboo.
Some recent output wasn't recent, really. His story in The Bleeding Edge, "Some of My Best Friends Are Martians" (2009) was really from the Martian Chronicles era and was as moth-eaten, especially for a story that, as Bradbury put it, "captures my feelings about race relations." The essay in last week's New Yorker was diverting, but not news to anyone who read Bradbury outside of school.
Then there was that music video.
And now he is deceased. Not being above such things, I took a screencap of his Bookscan numbers (they update on Wednesdays) and will check back next week to record the sure-to-be-fantastic leap. 451 still sells a few thousand copies a week. I expect an explosion next week.
I've been looking forward to a forthcoming tribute anthology edited by Mort Castle and biographer Sam Weller, Shadow Show. More now than ever. It comes out next month, which is suddenly very sad. I suspect and hope that Bradbury got an advance copy. It'll be good to see tributes not clouded by death.
At the last minute I managed to not include the note reading, "Don't even talk to me again until you're done!", because The 100 is a pretty long book, and plus it was Christmas.
Bradbury suffered from being more often taught than read these days. One generation's cult fiction is always the next generation's required reading, mainly because English teachers are often barely reformed social misfits who want to resolve their own childhood troubles with bullies and loneliness by engineering the future with the blunt hammer of syllabi. He wrote every day and when he couldn't manage that anymore, he had his daughter transcribe his compositions over the phone, but of the many many remarks you've read today, who mentioned anything of a more recent vintage than the script to Moby-Dick (1965)? I would have expected at least one or two mentions from From the Dust Returned, his 2001 "novel"—a fix-up of old Elliott family stories, but still something I would have guessed was read fairly widely. But no. It was mostly just school days stuff today.
Then there's the fact that Bradbury had a stroke back in 1999—since then he's been a regular on the slow news day circuit. Did you know that Bradbury watched Fox News all morning? (And, of course, that Fox News is a brainwashing outfit that nobody but people who complain about it constantly are immune to.) And he wanted Obama to build a Mars base, but also keep government small. Ha-ha, he was so inexplicably stupid, the old white prune! What was he, brain damaged or some...oh. What else—he didn't like Head Start, liked George W. Bush on some policy positions, and announced a few times that the theme of Fahrenheit 451 was the evil of television and not state censorship. It's not that Bradbury necessarily went all that crazy after his stroke; he was just fairly easy to squeeze for juicy quotes. Especially about "hating the Internet", which is the last great taboo.
Some recent output wasn't recent, really. His story in The Bleeding Edge, "Some of My Best Friends Are Martians" (2009) was really from the Martian Chronicles era and was as moth-eaten, especially for a story that, as Bradbury put it, "captures my feelings about race relations." The essay in last week's New Yorker was diverting, but not news to anyone who read Bradbury outside of school.
Then there was that music video.
And now he is deceased. Not being above such things, I took a screencap of his Bookscan numbers (they update on Wednesdays) and will check back next week to record the sure-to-be-fantastic leap. 451 still sells a few thousand copies a week. I expect an explosion next week.
I've been looking forward to a forthcoming tribute anthology edited by Mort Castle and biographer Sam Weller, Shadow Show. More now than ever. It comes out next month, which is suddenly very sad. I suspect and hope that Bradbury got an advance copy. It'll be good to see tributes not clouded by death.