Ray Bradbury
(b. 1920)

Ray Bradbury is acknowledged today as one of the pioneers of science fiction. Unusually versatile and the author of over 500 works, Bradbury has written short stories, novels, poetry, plays, and screenplays. Bradbury's ingenious, thoughtful use of fantasy always engages the reader, and his gracefully poetic style has won him the admiration of many literary critics.

Born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1920, Ray Bradbury recalls a childhood fear of the dark and an intense fascination with monsters, magicians, and adventure films. He began to write stories at the age of 12. Two years later, in 1934, the Bradbury family moved to Los Angeles, California, where young Ray attended high school and haunted the Uptown Theatre to see films. He saved his lunch money to buy a typewriter and began to submit his stories to national magazines. From the beginning, Bradbury was attracted to science fiction, although this type of writing enjoyed little popularity at the time. In search of professional mentors, Bradbury joined the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, where he met a number of published authors who encouraged him.

Bradbury graduated from high school in 1938. Despite his energy and talent, he had little success with his writing for nearly three years. Bradbury sold newspapers on a street corner to support himself, but he never stopped writing stories, producing one new tale every week. Finally, in late 1940, he sold his first story, which was published the following year. Two years later, he was making enough money from story sales that he could abandon his newspaper job and begin writing full time. In 1947, Bradbury published his first collection of tales, Dark Carnival. That same year, he married Margaret McClure, and the two settled in an apartment just outside Los Angeles.

As a child, Bradbury had wanted to write stories about Mars and Martians. In 1950, he fulfilled that goal with the publication of The Martian Chronicles, his first novel. The book describes humankind's first attempt to colonize the planet Mars.

In The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury combines science fiction with social commentary—an approach that characterizes much of his later work. The book's focus on the human colonization of an already-inhabited planet allowed Bradbury to explore social concerns such as the threat of nuclear war, censorship, racism, and the dangers of technology. Significantly, these issues of the 1950s continue to be major concerns today.

The year 1953 was a turning point in Bradbury's career. The respected film director John Huston invited the young writer to co-author the screenplay for an adaptation of the classic novel by Herman Melville, Moby-Dick. Also in 1953, Bradbury published Fahrenheit 451, which took its title from the temperature at which book paper catches fire. In the novel's future society, all books are forbidden, and squads of "firemen" stand ready to search citizens' houses for any literary contraband and destroy it. In this novel, Bradbury launched a powerful attack on censorship and on how mass culture pressures the individual to conform.

In 1957, Bradbury published Dandelion Wine, a semi-autobiographical novel about his own childhood. Its gentle nostalgia and imaginative recreation of a vanished past proved Bradbury to be a writer of great range, and helped confirm his success.

Technology is the development of machines and other tools that help humans control, study, or make use of parts of our environment. Some modern examples are space technologies and the many new advances in Internet technology. Technological innovation has inspired many writers of science fiction such as Ray Bradbury.

In the last few centuries, technological advances have been occurring at a faster and faster rate. Although the benefits of these inventions often seem obvious, technology can have unpredictable consequences for society. It can change cultural traditions, economic systems, and individual lifestyles. The pervasiveness of technological change can prompt nostalgia, such as the yearning for the past that fills Dandelion Wine.

By the 1950s, it seemed as if technology had triumphed. Nevertheless, some began to feel that its ascendancy had brought many problems. Air and water were increasingly polluted. Possession of the latest technological devices often divided people economically. Only the rich could afford them.

In response to the disadvantages of technology, some steps have been taken. Government agencies and public spokespeople monitor the effects of each technological advance upon society or the environment. Meanwhile, the rate of technological advance continues to increase by leaps and bounds.

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