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Published on 02/23/1998 All articles from this issue

Sci-fi master Ray Bradbury flashes his wit, vision at Celebrity Forum

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By Clyde Noel

Special to the Town Crier

In a field that thrives on the fantastic, Ray Bradbury is widely recognized as the most important figure in the development of science fiction.

"How many people read me when you were in high school?" Bradbury asked the audience during his Feb. 20 appearance at De Anza College's Flint Center in Cupertino. More than half raised their hands.

He reminisced about his career and the influences that shaped him - books, movies, magic, early science fiction and dinosaurs.

"I fell in love with Buck Rogers when I was 9, and that comic strip made me fall in love with the future," Bradbury said. "I collected the strips for a couple of months and when my friends criticized me, I tore them up. I was upset because I 'killed the future,' so I ignored my friends and started to collect the strips - I still have them today. I never listened to another damn fool since."

Bradbury was born in 1920 in Waukegan, Ill. His first memories in reading were "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" at age 6. "I walked straight ever since," he cracked.

He became intrigued with King Tut, and the golden masks from King Tut's artifacts are revisited in his famous book, "The Martian Chronicles."

Bradbury has been a novelist, a short story writer, an essayist, a playwright, a screenwriter (John Houston's version of Moby Dick), a poet, an Academy Award nominee, an Emmy winner and a theme park consultant. His creativity is expressed as an "imagineer" at Walt Disney Enterprises in Orlando, where he designed the Spaceship Earth at Epcot Center.

His major works include the literary classics "The Martian Chronicles," "Dandelion Wine," "The Illustrated Man," "The October Country," " Something Wicked This Way Comes," and "Fahrenheit 451."

Bradbury encouraged would-be writers to be open to spontaneity.

"You never know ahead of time how a metaphor is going to turn out. Just go and write and see if it turns into a poem, a story a play or a novel," he said.

Bradbury currently is working on a script for a remake of "Fahrenheit 451." The original film came out in 1960. Production will start in August, directed by and starring Mel Gibson.

"I stumble onto things with my enthusiasm," he said. "We want to be immortal and space travel should go to other worlds. NASA has been its own worst enemy in going back to the moon. We should have stayed there. "