Sci-Fi Legend Lost: Author Ray Bradbury Dead at 91

Science fiction fans will no doubt be saddened by the loss of one of the genre’s greatest minds, Ray Bradbury.

Bradbury, author of classic books like Fahrenheit 451 and The Illustrated Man, died at his home in California June 5 at the age of 91. He was an early pioneer of modern science fiction, though he rejected the title of science fiction author:

First of all, I don’t write science fiction. I’ve only done one science fiction book and that’s Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. It was named so to represent the temperature at which paper ignites. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it’s fantasy. It couldn’t happen, you see? That’s the reason it’s going to be around a long time—because it’s a Greek myth, and myths have staying power.

 

Bradbury will live on just as he has, in the hearts of several generations of fans, and as a nearly inescapable influence for the genre.