Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451, Dies Aged 91

Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes, has died aged 91.

A writer of science fiction, fantasy and horror stories, Bradbury is best known for his visions of the way he saw America changing in the future.

His most famous novel, Fahrneheit 451, written in 1953, painted the picture of a dystopian future America, where books are outlawed and burned. The books title gives the temperatute at which paper will burst into flame.

His death was confirmed to io9.com by his family and biographer, Sam Weller. HIs grandson, Danny Karapetian, described him as "the biggest kid I know" and said his legacy would go 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".

In an article written for the June 4-11 issue of the New Yorker, Bradbury described when he first began reading science fiction magazines which he said, coupled with the release of Buck Rogers in 1928, led to him going "a trifle mad".

"It was one frenzy after one elation after one enthusiasm after one hysteria after another. I was always yelling and running somewhere, because I was afraid life was going to be over that very afternoon."

Bradbury described how he would "reach up to the red light of Mars and say "Take me home"", as he "yearned to fly away and land there in the strange dusts that blew over dead sea-bottoms toward the ancient cities".

He often spoke about his concerns for the future, specifically the increasing disconnect that people have with reality, and described himself as more of a fantasy author than a science fiction author, with Fahrenheit 451 his only science fiction work as it was "based on reality".

Bradbury married Marguerite McClure in 1947 and they had four daughters. Marguerite died in 2003. He will be buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park, with a headstone that reads "Author of Fahrenheit 451".

Karapetian chose an extract from Bradbury's The Illustrated Man, to best portray his thoughts on death.

The quote reads: "My tunes and numbers are here. They have filled my years, the years when I refused to die. And in order to do that I wrote, I wrote, I wrote at noon or 3:00AM.

"So as not to be dead."