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Ray Douglas Bradbury (born August 22 , 1920 ) is an American Fantasy , Horror , Science Fiction , and Mystery writer known best for '' The Martian Chronicles '', a 1950 book which has been described both as a Short Story collection and a novel, and his 1953 Dystopian novel '' Fahrenheit 451 .' BEGINNINGS Ray Bradbury (his given name is not Raymond) was born in Waukegan, Illinois to a Swedish mother and a father who was a telephone Lineman . His grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers, and not surprisingly, Bradbury was a reader and writer throughout his youth, spending much time in the Carnegie Library in Waukegan. His two early books '' Dandelion Wine '' and '' Something Wicked This Way Comes '' depict the town of Waukegan as "Green Town" and are semi-autobiographical. The Bradbury family lived in Tucson, Arizona , in 1926–1927 and 1932–1933, each time returning to Waukegan, and eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1934, when Ray was thirteen. Bradbury graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1938 but chose not to attend college. To make a living, he sold Newspaper s at the corner of South Norton Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. He continued to educate himself at the local library, and having been influenced by Science Fiction heroes like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers he began to Publish science fiction stories in Fanzine s in 1938. His first paid piece was for the Pulp Magazine ''Super Science Stories'' in 1941. He became a full-time writer by the end of 1942. His first book, '' Dark Carnival '', a collection of short works, was published in 1947 by Arkham House . He married Marguerite McClure (1922–2003) in 1947, and they had four daughters. WORKS For Bradbury, there is some blurring of categories, and the distinctions in his works are somewhat subjective, for he frequently has written multiple short stories about a set of characters or a subject, making minor edits or adding supplemental material, and calling the results a "novel". Although he is often described as a science fiction writer, Bradbury does not box himself into a particular narrative categorization: ::"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. 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." {Link without Title} Besides his fiction work, Bradbury has written many short Essay s on serious subjects concerning the arts and culture, attracting the attention of serious critics in this field. Bradbury was a consultant for the American Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair and the exhibit housed in EPCOT's Spaceship Earth geosphere at Walt Disney World . ADAPTATIONS OF HIS WORK Many Bradbury stories and Novel s have been adapted to films, radio, television, theater and comic books. In 1951–1954, twenty-seven of Ray Bradbury's stories were adapted by Al Feldstein for EC Comics , sixteen of which were collected in the books ''The Autumn People'' (1965) and ''Tomorrow Midnight'' (1966). Also in the early 1950s, adaptations of Bradbury stories were televised on a variety of shows including ''Tales of Tomorrow'', ''Lights Out'', ''Out There'', ''Suspense'', ''CBS Television Workshop'', ''Jane Wyman's Fireside Theatre'', ''Star Tonight'', ''Windows'' and ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents''. An outstanding, well-remembered production from this period, praised by ''Variety'', was the half-hour film, "The Merry-Go Round," adapted from "The Black Ferris" and shown on both ''Starlight Summer Theater'' in 1954 and NBC's ''Sneak Preview'' in 1956. For '' The Ray Bradbury Theater '', first seen on TV from 1985 to 1992, Bradbury adapted 65 of his stories. '' The Martian Chronicles '' became a 1980 TV Miniseries starring Rock Hudson . Director Jack Arnold first brought Bradbury to movie theaters in 1953 with '' It Came From Outer Space '', a Harry Essex screenplay developed from Bradbury's screen treatment, "The Meteor". Three weeks later came the release of Eugène Lourié 's '' The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms '' (1953), based on Bradbury's " The Fog Horn ," about a sea monster mistaking the sound of a fog horn for the mating cry of a female. Bradbury's close friend Ray Harryhausen produced the stop-motion animation of the creature. Over the next 50 years, more than 35 features, shorts and TV movies were based on Bradbury stories or screenplays. Recently, Peter Hyams ' film version of Bradbury's 1953 story, ''A Sound of Thunder'' (2005) brought an almost unanimous negative reaction from film critics. Reviewing for '' The New York Times '', A.O. Scott observed that "it illustrates the dangers of turning a lean, elegant short story into a loud, noisy, incoherent B Movie ." A new film version of ''Fahrenheit 451'' is being planned by director Frank Darabont ; an earlier version was directed by François Truffaut in 1966. In 2002, Bradbury's own Pandemonium Theatre Company production of ''Fahrenheit 451'' at Burbank's Falcon Theatre combined live acting with projected digital animation by the Pixel Pups . Bradbury and director Charles Rome Smith co-founded Pandemonium in 1964, staging the New York production of ''The World of Ray Bradbury'' (1964), adaptations of "The Pedestrian," "The Veldt" and "To the Chicago Abyss." CONTROVERSY In 2004 it was reported that Bradbury was extremely upset with filmmaker ), ''Another Tale of Two Cities'' ( Dickens ), ''The Golden Apples of the Sun'' ( Yeats ), ''I Sing the Body Electric'' ( Whitman ), ''Something Wicked This Way Comes'' ( Shakespeare ) and ''The Machineries of Joy'' ( Blake ), though none of these authors were alive at the time Bradbury used their words. HONORS AND AWARDS George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush .]]
TRIVIA
LIST OF BRADBURY WORKS Novels
Short story collections
In addition to these collections, many of the stories have been published in multi-author anthologies. Almost 50 additional Bradbury stories have never been collected anywhere after their initial publication in periodicals. Screenplays and teleplays
This list does not include adaptations by others of Bradbury's published stories. Radio
This list does not include adaptations by others of Bradbury's published stories. Poetry
Plays
Children
Fable
Non-fiction
FURTHER READING
DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT RAY BRADBURY
EXTERNAL LINKS
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