(b. Aug. 22, 1920, Waukegan, Ill., U.S.), American author of science-fiction short stories and novels, nostalgic tales, poetry, radio drama, and television and motion-picture screenplays. His highly imaginative science-fiction stories blended social criticism with an awareness of the hazards of runaway technology.

        Bradbury published his first story in 1940 and was soon contributing widely to magazines; his stories have been published in more than 700 anthologies. His first book of short stories, Dark Carnival (1947), was followed by The Martian Chronicles (1950; motion picture 1966; television miniseries 1980), generally accounted a science-fiction classic in its depiction of materialistic Earthmen exploiting and corrupting an idyllic Martian civilization. Bradbury's other important short-story collections include The Illustrated Man (1951), The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953), Fahrenheit 451 (1953), The October Country (1955), A Medicine for Melancholy (1959), The Machineries of Joy (1964), and I Sing the Body Electric! (1969). His novels include Dandelion Wine (1957) and Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962). He wrote stage plays and several screenplays, including Moby Dick (1956; in collaboration with John Huston). In the 1970s Bradbury wrote several volumes of poetry, and in the 1970s and '80s he concentrated on writing children's stories and crime fiction.

Famous Quote: "...There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zan Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/ Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme...." - Ray Bradbury