Ray Bradbury RIP

Ray Bradbury died yesterday – the great American science-fiction writer.

His book Fahrenheit 451 appeared nearly 60 yrs ago, but was prophetic, writing of a world where books and thinking are banned, and everybody is hooked on soap-operas and wanders around listening to musak through headphones.

I remember as a teenager reading a story of his where the hero rebels against the endless pap being pushed out on the telly and wanders out onto the streets to breathe the air and look at the stars, only to be arrested as a menace to the peace. He hadn’t been aware of a curfew which meant that people could not walk on the street after a certain hour because it disturbed the majority, worried as they were about theft.

I prefer the legendary Philip K Dick (yes, that was his surname), whose sci-fic writings are legend, but Bradbury is one of the greats.