History Creator / RayBradbury

Raymond Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an acclaimed American author of SpeculativeFiction, [[MysteryFiction Mystery]], {{Horror}}, and LiteraryFiction. He was also known for his screenplays and poetry, and for organizing large [[{{Anthology}} anthologies]] in the ScienceFiction genre.

* SerialKiller: The Lonely One in "The Whole Town's Sleeping" has killed many women in the town.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Works can go anywhere on the scale. ''Literature/Fahrenheit451'' could be more cynical considering its a dystopian novel, but TheHalloweenTree is clearly more idealistic.

** "The Playground".

Several of his novels and short stories have been [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted to film]] and TV series. Back in the 1950s, he discovered that two of his stories had been adapted by Creator/ECComics without permission. He kept his sense of humor about this, writing a note to the publisher praising the adaptations, while remarking that he had "inadvertently" not yet received the royalties. The publisher was eventually to work something out with the author well enough to be able to print several fine authorized adaptations of his work.

* AdultFear: "The Night" centers around the disappearance of a child.

* ContemptibleCover: ''[[http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/?p=2473 I Sing the Body Electric]]'' - the highest-rated cover on that site.

** "The City" involves a sentient Martian city ambushing the human explorers and changing them into cyborgs, so they'll launch a bioweapon attack on Earth and avenge its defeat in an ancient war with humanity's ancestors. And the story's narrated almost entirely by the city itself.

* SocietyMarchesOn: These days it's ''very'' hard to believe that the woman from "The Rocket Man" wouldn't have either followed her husband into space or gotten a divorce, years ago.

* ''Film/TheWonderfulIceCreamSuit'' (screenplay)

* "[[Literature/AgainDangerousVisions Christ, Old Student in a New School]]"

* "Literature/TheFlyingMachine"
* "Literature/TheHighway"
* "Literature/IcarusMontgolfierWright"

* "{{Literature/Kaleidoscope}}"

* "Literature/TheMurderer"

* "[[Literature/OneForHisLordshipAndOneForTheRoad One for His Lordship, and One for the Road!]]"

* "Literature/ASoundOfThunder"
* "Literature/ThereWillComeSoftRains"
* "Literature/TheVeldt"

* ShoutOut: Many Examples. A large amount of them towards various authors Ray admired and the films of Creator/LonChaney.
** TyrannosaurusRex is one big one to Creator/RayHarryhausen.

* TyrannosaurusRex: The centerpiece of the short story of the same name
** In "Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?" the boy protagonist [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin wants to become a T-Rex when he grows up.]]

[[quoteright:228:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/raybradbury_7572.jpg]]

His most well known novel is probably the {{dystopia}}n, [[UrExample Pre]]-CyberPunk novel ''Literature/Fahrenheit451''. His most well known short story is probably "Literature/ASoundOfThunder", which gave the world the ButterflyOfDoom. HeAlsoDid the story for a [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disney Theme Park]] ride at Epcot.

* IJustWantToHaveFriends: The mostly unseen sea monster of ''The Fog Horn'' has been lonely for ''millions'' of years and believing the titular fog horn is one of its own kind, desperately wishes to befriend it.

* LighthousePoint: "The Fog Horn".

* StockNessMonster: "The Fog Horn".

His most well known novel is probably the {{dystopia}}n, [[UrExample Pre]]-CyberPunk novel ''Literature/Fahrenheit451''. His most well known short story is probably "Literature/ASoundOfThunder", which gave the world the ButterflyOfDoom.

* ''Literature/DeathIsALonelyBusiness''

* ''Literature/ASoundOfThunder''

* ''Literature/TheOctoberCountry''

** Averted in "The Dwarf". The titular character is a peaceful guy, who isn't doing anything more in the hall of mirrors than seeing himself as a man of normal height. The owner of the hall of mirrors does more harm to him than vice versa.

* DrivenMadByTheIsolation: Emil Barton in "Night Call Collect" has spent 60 years all by himself on Mars, and has understandably grown rather unhinged. When he was younger, he even rigged up automatic systems in the empty martian cities to make it seem like there were other people around, but he eventually stopped. And instead started recording phone calls from himself to call up his older self decades in the future.

Several of his novels and short stories have been [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted to film]] and TV series. Back in the 1950s, he discovered that two of his stories had been adapted by Creator/ECComics without permission. He kept his sense of humor about this, writing a note to the publisher praising the adaptations, while remarking that he had "inadvertently" not yet received the royalties. The publisher was eventually able to print several fine authorized adaptations of his work.

* CoolUncle: Uncle Einar in ''Homecoming'' is the kindest member of a family of monsters to young Timothy, and cautions him to treasure his mortality. He's also the only family member Timmy is utterly overjoyed in seeing.