Sci-Fi Writer Ray Bradbury Will Live Forever

As a 12-year-old boy, Ray Bradbury was tapped on the shoulder by a magician who commanded him to “live forever.” On his official website, Bradbury recounts, “I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped.”

On June 5, 2012, the celebrated science fiction and horror author died at the age of 91. But thanks to his library of work, the prolific wordsmith (credited with writing at least 27 novels and over 600 short stories) will live forever. Many of writings have since been adapted for stage, television and film productions.

In 1953, Bradbury was hired to work with Director John Huston in reworking Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick for a theatrical release. The movie starred Gregory Peck as the driven, despotic Captain Ahab. Bradbury also wrote the screenplay for The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, a movie based on his 1957 Saturday Evening Post short story. In 1966, François Truffaut directed the movie adaptation of Bradbury’s 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451. The dystopian story introduces a future where books are banned, and burned by a special force of firemen. However, one young fireman begins to question his work when he secretly picks up a book and begins reading it.  A Sound of Thunder, a 2005 movie starring Ben Kingsley and Edward Burn, is also based on one of Bradbury’s short stories. In it, an ambitious businessman offers time travel tours to the wealthiest of his clients who are transported 60 million years into the past where they encounter dinosaurs.

Michael McDonough of Brigham Young University produced Bradbury 13. The audio adaptations include 13 half-hour radio dramas of some of the author’s best-known stories. Bradbury, who was reportedly happy with the series, provided the opening voice-over. The serial won several awards including a Peabody.