Loss of a True Visionary and Backlog of Reviews Updates

Ray Bradbury
1920-2012

I'm certain most of you have heard this already, but I felt I needed to mention this sad news and offer my two cents. Tuesday, June 6, 2012, renowned author Ray Bradbury passed away at the age of 91. You may know (and maybe dread) him from high school English class from being forced to read having the pleasure of reading Fahrenheit 451. Others may have been introduced to him in other ways and enjoyed their encounters with his works either in class or outside the school setting. I know in Minnesota high schools, F451 seems to be the perennial favorite of English classes. Back when I worked at Barnes & Noble, I had taken many a high school student back to the Sci-Fi section to pick up their mandatory copy of F451 for English class... and how many times we sold out because of 3 high schools' worth of students coming to our one store and the schools not telling us that this current semester was Bradbury semester. 

I have only read F451, and that was back in junior year AP English. I didn't understand it then, at least not all of its amazing messages, because my adolescent brain hadn't yet matured enough to understand dystopian societies. The only things I remember for F451 was the girl dancing in the rain, they burned books (SPOILER!), and that the guy's name was Montag---which is German for Monday. Oh, and the creepy bio-mechanical slug beasts called Hounds (?) that sniffed out books. I think later that year, or my senior year, we read Orwell's 1984 and I knew that blew straight over my level of understanding. I remember more of F451 than I do of 1984. I recall an awkward real like sex scene (vs the virtual government-ordained method), Group Think, Group Speak, and "Double plus good."

But now, that I've matured by 10+ years and had experiences out in the world that broadened my horizons and understanding of how the world really is, I'm pretty certain that I am prepared to handle those dystopian books. A couple of years ago, I read Animal Farm, which I remember having been mentioned in an episode of the original X-Men cartoon of the 1990s. Beast was reading it when he was in a mutant detention center, being held by the anti-mutant riot/task force. Being in my late 20s/early 30s, I could understand that Beast holding that iconic book meant more than my little prepubescent brain could comprehend. When I was done reading it, I couldn't stop with the real-life applications of Orwell's socialist and oppressed farm to what I was seeing and hearing about in our world today. That got my brain thinking. I should really go back and reread F451 and 1984, now that I'm mentally prepared to understand what Orwell and Bradbury wanted to get across to their readers. I had always meant to pick up F451 again, and now that Bradbury has passed, I suppose as some sort of tribute, I could pick it up again. I think I have it on my bookshelf still. 

But Bradbury did more than become the unwilling bane of high schoolers' existences. He, like Orwell and H.G. Wells, helped usher in the science fiction and fantasy genres as we know them today. With him, and his peers, we wouldn't have some of our great epics of our time, like Star Wars, Avatar, Dr. Who, Aliens, Star Trek... anything about other worlds, time travel, aliens, or the coming of wicked things... we owe it to Bradbury's influence on more modern authors. So while you get inundated with memorials and video clips, sound bites and quick blurbs at the end of news shows, show your gratitude and respect to a great author in your own way.  Either pick up one of his books, one of his esteemed peers', or pop in Star Wars Episode IV. 

Thank you, Mr. Bradbury. Thankfully, you were alive to see how beloved your works had become. And how truly... *ahem* admiring... your fans are: 

Warning... strong language and suggestive lyrics. If you're easily offended... you might want to skip this... But it's a great, funny tribute to a girl's fave author in a cheeky way NSFW

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So here's the updated list of my books to review, so far:

• Dead of Night
• Crooked Little Vein (4-11-12)
• Homer's Odyssey (3-26-12)
• Crimson City Series  (6-5-12)
• Circle of Heck series (thus far) (4-8-12)
• Joe Ledger series (thus far)  (3-27-12)
• Mutant Island series 
• Double Booked for Death (3-15-12)
• Family Affair
• Sacre Bleu
• How I Paid for College  (5-2-12)
• Attack of the Theater People!
• Liberty (5-7-12)
• Tattoo (Jennifer Barnes) (4-30-12)