Science Fiction Author Ray Bradbury Dies at 91

Acclaimed fantasy/science-fiction author Ray Bradbury has died.

The website io9.com reports the author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes and many others died this morning at his home in Los Angeles. He was 91.

Fahrenheit 451, about a book-burning future, was the book used for this year’s Big Read in West Hollywood. A series of events held during the month of April were connected to that 1951 classic. The city declared April 2 as “Ray Bradbury Day” Bradbury was also the headliner at the city’s annual Book Fair in 2008.

Bradbury’s grandson, Danny Karapetian, shared these words with io9.com about his grandfather's passing: "I love and miss him, and I look forward to hearing everyone's memories about him. He influenced so many artists, writers, teachers, scientists, and it's always really touching and comforting to hear their stories. . his legacy lives on in his monumental body of books, film, television and theater, but more importantly, in the minds and hearts of anyone who read him, because to read him was to know him. He was the biggest kid I know."

Bradbury was born on August 20, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. His family moved to Los Angeles in 1934. He graduated from Los Angeles High School, taking many poetry and short-story writing classes. He never attended college, but has been quoted as having gone to libraries throughout the city “three days a week for ten years.”

He is said to have written the short story The Fireman on a rented typewriter in a study room in UCLA’s Powell Library. That story was later expanded and renamed Fahrenheit 451.

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