How Not to Choose an Occupation

Ray Bradbury’s Illustrated Man has many interesting stories into which you can sink your teeth and rile your imagination. The Long Rain strands astronauts on Venus and the persistent rains that drove you mad.  The Veldt has murderous children kill their parents with virtual reality lions, and The Rocket Man, which prompted the desire in me to become an astronaut traveling the solar system.

The imagery did it to this ten year old who loved to daydream. In the story, dad read stereo-newspapers, the family rushed to town in a helicopter, and they had mechanical book readers. (He wrote it in 1951.) As I read I could feel the astronaut’s compulsion to go back into space. It made me feel as if that would be my career path. I craved an occupation that didn’t exist.

There was a cautionary line, “Don't ever be a Rocket Man… Don't let it get hold of you.” Nevertheless, the story created a yearning in me. Even when the astronaut’s ship fell into the sun, I felt that Rocket Man was the job for me.

One day I discovered that it just doesn’t happen as the story portrays. There are no Martian sunflowers. Rocket men just don’t get into spacecraft and return three months later. Alas, my dream fell to pieces.

What remained was my love of science fiction.

NASA IMAGE OF SATURN'S RINGS

Science Fiction: Predicting the Future

One of the reasons I love science fiction is because science fiction regularly becomes science fact. Many of the stories we write today turn into reality tomorrow, and often with great benefits to humankind.

In this article, a jetpack is about to go to market. 

Follow this link to the article. 

In 1888 Edward Bellamy wrote Looking Backward  and introduced the idea of universal credit. People had cards that they could use to access a central bank. Think about how long ago this happened.

Ray Bradbury predicted the ear bud in Fahrenheit 451 (I still read it on occasion.) by depicting mechanisms that fit over a person’s ears. He described them as little seashells.

Science fiction creates visions for people to make reality.

Sizzling Hot

Recently I reread Fahrenheit 451, probably for the tenth time. Every reading brings new insights into the mastery of Ray Bradbury as a truly gifted writer. This reading brought out the poetry and description this talented man used when he wrote his fantastical work. In addition, knowing that he taught himself the craft of writing makes it all the more impressive.

If you choose to emulate writers to improve your writing, Ray Bradbury would be a great author to study.

Here's a video about Fahrenheit 451:

Why Sci-Fi?

Why is it that we love science fiction? Most of it’s unbelievable, and much of it is hokey. Yet we continue to read science fiction books; watch science fiction movies and TV shows. Some even attend Trekkie conventions.

And let’s not forget the other science fiction gatherings, not just in the United States, but globally. There must be something to this activity. Couldn’t we all read romance novels or mysteries? There’s a reason we flock toward these “strange stories.”
For me, it was being in the library and browsing a copy of Ray Bradbury's "Illustrated Man." His writing grabbed my attention in a way that few others ever have.

Reading about the crew stranded on a planet of horrible rain in "The Long Rain" that Bradbury described as follows:
"The rain continued. It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping at the eyes, an undertow at the ankles; it was a rain to drown all rains and the memory of rains. It came by the pound and the ton, it hacked at the jungle and cut the trees like scissors and shaved the grass and tunneled the soil and molted the bushes. It shrank men's hands into the hands of wrinkled apes; it rained a solid glassy rain, and it never stopped."

"The Veldt," that used a futuristic nursery to enhance a concerned couple's children to commit the ultimate horror of killing their parents.

These are a couple of the most unusual stories I remember from that day. Ray did it for me. I was hooked for life.
What’s yours?