Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) was an author whose work transcended genres, whether it was fantasy, young-adult literature, or horror. A number of Bradbury's novels were turned into movies, including The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Curiously, for a writer associated in the minds of many with science fiction, Bradbury stated that he only wrote one science-fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. Like most writers, Bradbury was deeply influenced by the places where he grew up. The first of these was Waukegan, Illinois, where Bradbury was born; it was subsequently re-imagined by Bradbury as Green Town, the setting for Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes, a later novel called Farewell Summer, and numerous short stories. While this Midwest period of his childhood may have given him a voice of the heartland, he was also influenced by the glitter and glamor of Hollywood, which he enjoyed from the age of 14, when his family moved to Los Angeles. Soon after his arrival in Los Angeles, Bradbury ingratiated himself into the city's science-fiction community, whose members included authors Robert Heinlein and Leigh Brackett. By 1938, at the age of 17, he had published his first story in a fanzine called Imagination! and by 19 he was writing for a short-lived 'zine of his own called Futuria Fantasia. For the next decade, including the years of World War II, Bradbury churned out short stories for Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, Planet Stories, and other pulp-magazine titles. By 1947, more than two dozen of these shorter works were collected into Bradbury's first book, Dark Carnival, published by Arkham House. Bradbury's first novel, The Martian Chronicles, 1950, was also built from a collection of short stories. Indeed, while Bradbury is credited with writing a couple of dozen novels, he is thought to have written more than 600 shorter works of fiction. That may be why his work lent itself so well to television. Beginning in the mid-1950s, his stories were adapted for "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Twilight Zone." In 1985, The Ray Bradbury Theater debuted on HBO before being picked up by the USA Network. In all, 65 Bradbury stories were told over the course of the show's six-season run.