Visionary author Ray Bradbury dies

Ray Bradbury anticipated iPods, interactive television, electronic surveillance and live, sensational media events, including televised police pursuits — and not necessarily as good things.

The science fiction-fantasy master spent his life conjuring such visions from his childhood dreams and Cold War fears, spinning tales of telepathic Martians, lovesick sea monsters and, in uncanny detail, the hi-tech, book-burning future of Fahrenheit 451.

All of them, in short stories, in the movie theatre and on the television screen, would fire the imaginations of generations of children and adults across the world. Years later, the sheer volume and quality of his work would surprise even him.

“I sometimes get up at night when I can’t sleep and walk down into my library and open one of my books and read a paragraph and say: ‘My God, did I write that? Did I write that?’ Because it’s still a surprise,” Bradbury said in 2000.

Bradbury, who died on Tuesday night at age 91, was slowed in recent years by a stroke that meant he had to use a wheelchair. But he remained active over the years, turning out new novels, plays, screenplays and a volume of poetry.

His writings ranged from horror and mystery to humour and sympathetic stories about the Irish, blacks and Mexican-Americans. Bradbury also scripted John Huston’s 1956 film version of Moby Dick and also wrote for The Twilight Zone