IN MEMORIAM: Ray Bradbury

We learned this morning that Ray Bradbury, a legend in the world of science fiction, passed away. The Transit of Venus seemed a fitting send off to a man who wrote so eloquently about such other-worldly things and horrifying things so much closer to home.

He was 91 years old.

His best known work, beloved my most, was perhaps Fahrenheit 451. It showed us what a society that didn’t respect books would be like and what lengths intellectuals and book readers like us would have to go to keep our stories alive.

Through his books, Bradbury will stay alive in the same way, we’ll carry him and his books in our heads just like the countless bands at the end of his famous novel carry the works of Shakespeare and everything else worth remembering.

I’ll never forget the impact his stories had on me as a child, and there was nothing like the stories he told about his career at Comic-Con. My favorite story of his, though, was always The Veldt.

As a fitting tribute, here is Stephen Colbert reading it: