When I was about 12 years old, my parents decided to switch my bedroom with my father's home office. My dad--deliberately--left behind a wall of bookshelves filled with his collection of science fiction books and magazines. All the
grand masters were there: Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Pohl. I loved those stories, filled with the robots, galactic empires, and time machines that were already part of the familiar furniture of my imagination. Some of the stories on my dad's shelves, however, were, well, strange. They had unsettling, peculiar images, a terrifying
virtual reality nursery-jungle, a
"Wonderful Ice-Cream Suit". Or their characters were just a bit too human to pin down, too individual, too sad. They encouraged me to think things I had never thought before.
Many of these strange, wonderful stories were written by Ray Bradbury, who
died yesterday at age 91. He was a magic realist before the phrase was invented. His heart, vision, and language were too big for the conventions of science fiction or any other genre.
In one of Bradbury's
most famous novels, books are outlawed and outlaws keep reading alive by remembering books. In 1971, he wrote an autobiographical essay, “How Instead of Being Educated in College, I Was Graduated From Libraries.” He was a
tireless advocate for libraries until the end of his life.
Thank you, Ray, we'll miss you.
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