Ray Bradbury Essays (1407 words) - Waukegan, Illinois,

Ray Bradbury "Ray Bradbury is one of the immortals among us, whose classic works of science fiction, fantasy and horror will be read a thousand years from now by our descendents and the relatives alike of the planets of a thousand distant stars." ( Dragon*con, website). He's won many awards for his writings and lectures, and I have no doubt in my mind that his writings will live on forever. "It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning." (Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 67). The above is from Fahrenheit 451, a science fiction novel by Ray Bradbury. The quote describes the main concept of the book and is very appealing because it gives so much visual detail to the scene. This story is set in the future where all books and other written materials are 02 out lawed. Guy Montag's job is to burn books and the houses which the books are hidden in. He never questions his actions until he meets an old women who tells him how it was in the past when people didn't live in fear and could read whatever they wished. Eventually he does everything he can to prevent books from being burned and starts wanting to learn more and more. "I thought that this novel exercised great social commentary on society as a whole". It shows how important books are to all. It also shows that some people feel that knowledge is a threat to power and rule. Reading is a freedom everyone should enjoy. Ray Bradbury is an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and poet. He was born in Waukegan, Illinois on August 22, 1920. The third son of Leonard Spaulding Bradbury and Esther Marie Moberg Bradbury. In the fall of 1926 Ray Bradbury's family moved from Waukegan to Tucson, Arizona, only to return to Waukegan in May 1927. By 1931 Ray had begun writing his own stories on butcher paper. In 1932, after his father was laid off from his job as a telephone lineman, the Bradbury family again moved to Tucson but again returned to Waukegan the following year. In 1934 the Bradbury family moved to Los Angeles, California. Bradbury graduated from a Los Angeles High School in 1938. His formal education ended there, but he furthered it by himself -- at night in the library and by day at his typewriter. (Bradbury, Fahrenheit back of book). He sold newspapers on Los Angeles street corners from 1938 to 1942. Bradbury's first published story was "Hollerbochen's Dilemma," printed in 1938 in Imagination!, an amateur fan magazine. In 1939, Bradbury published four issues of Futuria Fantasia, his own fan magazine, contributing much of the published material himself. Bradbury's first paid publication was "Pendulum" in 1941 to Super Science Stories. In 1942 Bradbury wrote "The Lake," the story in which he discovered his distinctive writing style. ( Dragon*con, website). By 1943 he had given up his job selling newspapers and began writing full-time, contributing numerous short stories to periodicals. In 1945 his short story "The Big Black and White Game" was selected for Best American Short Stories. In 1947 Bradbury married 03 Marguerite McClure, and that same year he gathered much of his best material and published them as Dark Carnival, his first short story collection. His reputation as a leading writer of science fiction was established with the publication of The Martian Chronicles in 1950 (published in England under the title The Silver Locusts), which describes the first attempts of Earth people to conquer and colonize Mars, the constant thwarting of their efforts by the gentle, telepathic Martians, the