Iuuuu
Iuuuu
Bradbury had such a wonderful economy with his prose, and such a singular voice. I remember as a child in the 70’s reading the works of the Golden Age masters as part of the basic coursework of science fiction. While I loved the stories then, with their optimism and their horror, in retrospect I certainly didn’t appreciate them enough. It seems oddly quiet now we are almost bereft of such titans in a world full of noise for which they paved the way.
Radio version of The Veldt: http://archive.org/download/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles/XMinusOne55-08-04012TheVeldt.mp3
One of my favorite tributes to Bradbury is the townhouse in Fallout 3. The intrepid explorer can activate a robot nanny in the ruins of a house, and it can recite a poem. Listening to the robot, I gradually recognized its poem as “There Will Come Soft Rains”, a poem referenced in Bradbury’s story of the same name. I hadn’t read the story since elementary school, but evidently it left an impression, and that video game robot blasted it back with an intensity that literally made me gasp. Here was a house killed by nuclear fire, its AI blindly existing long after its inhabitants had died. That’s just so…sad! The tragedy and poignancy of nuclear exchange was driven home better in that locale than the rest of the game, but of course Bradbury did it first.
Here’s a pet theory of mine, and who knows if it holds water: mid-20th century SF writers like Bradbury, Shute, Miller and others did such a great job of conjuring the destruction, futility and stupidity of nuclear war through the written word that it trickled down to the statesmen and generals of both sides, and lo and behold, the human race is still here.
So, if that’s so, here’s to Ray Bradbury. He saved Earth.