I

never met him. If his introduction to one of this books is true, He was the literary descendant of numerous authors. I would say that Ray was my literary grandfather.

I remember reading my first Ray book when I was in the eighth grade. My mom checked it out from the library for me. It was a novel, that weaved together a collection of short stories. You see normally, publishers won’t publish short story books. It’s a loss for them. So Ray being the smart man he was, tricked them by placing a narrative in it. It was brilliant. That book was my first true love. It was a mix of science fiction and philosophy. That book was the “Illustrated Man.”

The next book I read was another collection of stories. This time it was a set of horror stories. I never finished it. I don’t like horror. In fact to this day the only horror book I ever finished was “Something Wicked this Way Comes”. That was my summer between eighth grade and ninth grade.

When I got into high school I read the “Martian Chronicles”. I didn’t like it as much as some of his other works. It inspired me to write. Ray inspired me to write. After that I read by far my favorite book from him, “Fahrenheit 451″. This book I have read almost as many times as “Treasure Island”. This is a big deal because I hardly ever re-read books.

He pushed the genres he wrote in. He pushed me to write. He showed me you can write multiple genres in multiple formats. He once said in an interview (and I’m paraphrasing) to write everyday a short story, and by the end of the year you will have written at least one good one.

Words to live by.

Goodbye Ray.