Ray Bradbury, an Appreciation

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FICTION Ray Bradbury, an appreciation Astronomer and author David Brin celebrates the legacy of a literary titan whose life- long pursuit of new horizons changed the face of science fiction.

rilliant science fiction can ignite novel, Fahrenheit 451, took up a very differ- to “live forever!” A child of the Depression, scientific ambition. After the death of ent tradition: the self-preventing prophecy. Bradbury nurtured his love of writing in free Ray Bradbury on 5 June, thousands of The author wrought a tale of book-burning public libraries and while hawking newspa- Bresearchers must have reflected on the inspi- and political correctness gone wild that filled pers on street corners. rational power of his works. The author of readers first with shock, then with determi- Like many authors who followed, Bradbury The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illus- nation to thwart that possible future. He thus started out writing stories for mimeographed trated Man (1951) and Fahrenheit 451 (1953) joined the ranks of authors such as George fan publications of the 1940s, climbing grad- died in Los Angeles at the age of 91, ruminat- Orwell, whose Nineteen Eighty-four (1949) ually upwards while honing his craft. His ing and planning stories until the end. and other works frightened millions into skills later took him to Hollywood, where he Bradbury was the last living member of taking action through politics and daily life. scripted films such as John Huston’s Moby the ‘BACH quartet’ — made up of himself, Again, it was not futuristic technology that Dick (1956) and the US television series Ray Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert made Fahrenheit 451 effective. The book is, Bradbury Theater (1985–92), while raising Heinlein. In the 1950s and 1960s these four daughters and penning one lumi- men pulled science fiction from its pulp- nous book after another. magazine ghetto into the hardcover best- Bradbury’s stories and novels often seller lists. Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein plunged into dark themes. There is helped to shatter barriers, establishing satanic-huckster villainy in Something the legitimacy of literature that explores Wicked This Way Comes (1962), and the plausible tomorrows. But it was Bradbury 1954 short story All Summer in a Day who made clear to everyone that science starkly reveals how basic the tendency T. KORODY/SYGMA/CORBIS T. fiction can be an art form combining toward cruelty is, and that childhood is boldness and broad horizons with beauty. neither pure nor innocent. His scientific Often, when an author of future- readers forgave things such as his water- oriented fiction achieves mainstream drenched Venus and untechnological literary acclaim, there is a temptation plot-drivers, including monsters and to announce, “I don’t write sci-fi,” as if childhood terrors under the bed. dropping the label will ensure escape Could anyone reconcile this chain of from the ghetto. But when Bradbury chillers with Bradbury’s self-proclaimed said that, he meant the opposite. He optimism? He himself did. Human wrote mostly fantasy, horror and sus- beings are fretful creatures, he said. Our pense because, he once told me, “I can’t worries often cause us to shine light in do science, but that’s my loss.” He never dismal corners, and thus help us to do learned to drive and for most of his life better. To be better. avoided aeroplanes, but Bradbury’s In fact, Bradbury had a lot to say works had a major influence on space about a human trait he despised: cyni- travel and exploration. He became a fix- cism. His word for it was treason. Trea- ture on television, interviewed whenever Ray Bradbury helped to relaunch science fiction as art form. son against a world — and humanity some epochal milestone — such as the — that had, in his view, improved enor- first Moon landing — was achieved. instead, a potent example of what Albert mously over the course of a generation in In his 1950 breakthrough anthology, The Einstein called the Gedankenexperiment, or terms of technological achievements, and Martian Chronicles, rocket ships are taken thought experiment — the essence of good in ethics and behaviour. The racism, sexism for granted. The book omits any technical science fiction. and class prejudice that our ancestors took details. The rockets are simply marvellous Ray Douglas Bradbury was born in 1920, for granted may not have been eliminated, conveyances that deliver the characters to in Illinois. When he was 13, his family but society had at least succeeded in pushing a frontier where awe mixes with terror and moved to Los Angeles, California, where them into ignominy. unquenchable hope. Bradbury’s doomed he remained for the rest of his life. Among Ray Bradbury’s writing danced along the Martians are more than just surrogates for many early influences on a fertile young boundaries between mystery, sci-fi, horror native, colonized peoples. They are also imagination was the fact — very exciting to a and fantasy. What mattered to him most was humanity’s complex and flawed elder siblings child — that one of his ancestresses had been the direction we are heading: forwards, pro- on the ladder of wisdom, instructing in spite tried as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts, pelled by ever-growing knowledge and the of their fatal errors. in the late seventeenth century. He often will to peer even farther. ■ Readers loved the NATURE.COM described the lasting impressions left by the rockets, but the char- For Nature’s online films of early-twentieth-century horror actor David Brin is an astronomer and author acters taught us about special on science Lon Chaney Senior, and the occasion when of 15 novels translated into more than balance and cost. fiction, visit: a stage magician shocked Bradbury’s nose 20 languages. His latest novel is Existence. Bradbury’s great go.nature.com/mqc2jd with an electric sword, commanding him e-mail: [email protected]