Into the Light: Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury has passed away at the age of 91.  He was a Grand Old Man of science fiction, and influenced many writers.  Including me.  My very first introduction to the world of science fiction was a battered copy of The Martian Chronicles, mysteriously hidden behind a couch at my fundamentalist grandmother's house.  (I suspect some other clandestine reader had brought it and forgotten it, for it was definitely NOT something she would have permitted.)  I was fascinated by the stories. It took me a while to figure out what it was, because the cover was missing.  But then I knew, and then I found more, and it's all been downhill from there.

The pages can burn, but the story remains--and lingers, like a dormant seed in the mind, until the time comes to blossom and cast seeds of its own.  Thanks, Ray.