Ray Bradbury dies aged 91

Ray Bradbury, the sci-fi maestro behind such seminal tales as Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes , has died aged 91.

Best known for his hundreds of novels and short stories, Bradbury was also a prolific screenwriter, having worked on such classics as John Huston's adaptation of Moby Dick and schlocky sci-fi extravaganza, It Came From Outer Space .

Several of his stories were also translated to the big screen, with Francois Truffaut's take on Fahrenheit 451 among the most famous. The Illustrated Man , an adaptation of a collection of Bradbury stories is another well worth seeking out.

"If you're looking for any single passage to remember him by," said grandson Danny Karapetian in a statement to i09 , "I just picked up my copy of The Illustrated Man , my favourite of his books. The introduction is entitled Dancing, So As Not to Be Dead , and there are some great lines about death."

"My favourite: '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 3:00 A.M. So as not to be dead.'"

The science-fiction landscape, and that of both literature and cinema, is so much the poorer for his passing.