Ray Bradbury 1920 - 2012

One of the giants of science fiction and fantasy, Ray Bradbury has passed away at the age of 91.

Author of, among many others, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Something Wicked This Way Comes and innumerable classic short stories, Ray Bradbury was - and continues to be - a guiding light of science fiction, often moving the genre away from its 'rockets and ray guns' roots, although equally often at home using the familar tropes of the genre.

For me, as for so many others of my generation,  Bradbury was one of the first writers I read that showed me the possibilities of sf as a literary rather than generic form and I still have a battered copy of The Illustrated Man somewhere on my shelves, a book which I have owned for nearly thirty years.

Quite simply, Ray Bradbury was a genius.