A friend of mine died this week, Ray Bradbury. Actually, I never met the man, but he is still my friend! Since I started this blog in August of 2006, Mr. Bradbury has been the subject of my own posts many times:
- Brave New World, Take 2
- 25 Years of Technology and Culture
- Libraries, Enclyclopedias and DoDo Birds
- Classic Sci-Fi Cover Art
Mr. Bradbury has often been quoted on how libraries opened his world, and introduced him to thousands and thousands of people. Via my own librarian (Thanks to a Great Librarian), I was introduced to science fiction and his writings in specific. Let us hope that our great libraries never reach the point at which paper burns, Fahrenheit 451. However, libraries can burn without fire if our society does not remain diligent.
Quoting from the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University:
"How ironic that Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, with its book burning firemen, was published in 1953 and would once have been entering the public domain on January 1, 2010. To quote James Boyle, "Bradbury’s firemen at least set fire to their own culture out of deep ideological commitment, vile though it may have been. We have set fire to our cultural record for no reason; even if we had wanted retrospectively to enrich the tiny number of beneficiaries whose work keeps commercial value beyond 56 years, we could have done so without these effects. The ironies are almost too painful to contemplate."
As parting gesture, here are two classic covers from of some of his most well known books. Please consider visiting this site from vintage papaerbacks. You can have fun exploring more classic sci-fi covers.