Ray Bradbury

Introduction

When all is said and done, when all the pens have run dry and all the computers are unplugged, Ray Bradbury will remain literature’s favorite bogeyman. Despite an incredibly prolific career that spans countless styles, formats, and genres, Bradbury is best known for his creepier tales. Whether chronicling the spooky carnival in Something Wicked This Way Comes or the nightmarish society of Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury had a knack for tapping into very real human fears—paranoia, solitude, abandonment, death. Surprisingly, Bradbury often shrugged off his sci-fi reputation because he believed his tales, no matter how sinister, often had some basis in reality. So, yes, the monsters under your bed just might be real after all.

Essential Facts

1. Of the numerous adaptations of Ray Bradbury’s works into film and television, one of the earliest was It Came From Outer Space, a minor classic of the 1950s science-fiction genre.
2. From 1985 to 1992, Bradbury hosted The Ray Bradbury Theater, a serial television show based on his short stories.
3. Although mostly associated with science fiction and the macabre, Bradbury has written family-oriented material like The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit.
4. Despite its box office success and the political firestorm it instigated, the film Fahrenheit 9/11 angered Bradbury because director Michael Moore appropriated the title of Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451 without asking permission.
5. Bradbury became a member of the now-famous Clifton Cafeteria’s Science Fiction club, which included other notable writers such as Robert Heinlein.