Sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury dies at 91

Ray Bradbury, who anticipated iPods, interactive television, electronic surveillance and live, sensational media events died Tuesday at age 91. The science fiction-fantasy master spent his life spinning tales of telepathic Martians, lovesick sea monsters and the high-tech, book-burning future of "Fahrenheit 451." His work would fire the imaginations of generations of children and adults across the world.

"He was my muse for the better part of my sci-fi career," director Steven Spielberg said in a statement. "He lives on through his legion of fans. In the world of science fiction and fantasy and imagination, he is immortal."

Bradbury broke through in 1950 with "The Martian Chronicles," which has been published in more than 30 languages, was made into a TV miniseries and inspired a computer game.

"The Martian Chronicles" prophesied the banning of books, a theme Bradbury would take on fully in the 1953 release "Fahrenheit 451" -- an apocalyptic narrative with firefighters assigned to burn books instead of putting blazes out (451 degrees Fahrenheit, Bradbury had been told, was the temperature at which texts went up in flames).

"It was a book based on real facts and also on my hatred for people who burn books," he told The Associated Press in 2002.

Bradbury became the rare science fiction writer treated seriously by the literary world. In 2007, he received a special Pulitzer Prize citation "for his distinguished, prolific and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy." Seven years earlier, he received an honorary National Book Award for lifetime achievement.

Ray Douglas Bradbury was born on Aug. 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Ill. Nightmares that plagued him as a boy stocked his imagination, as did his youthful delight with the Buck Rogers and Tarzan comic strips, early horror films, Tom Swift adventure books and the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

"The great thing about my life is that everything I've done is a result of what I was when I was 12 or 13," he said in 1982.

Bradbury tried to write at least 1,000 words a day, and sold his first story in 1941. His first book, a short story collection called "Dark Carnival," was published in 1947.

He said that he wrote "Fahrenheit 451" at the UCLA library, on typewriters that rented for 10 cents a half-hour. He said he carried a sack full of dimes to the library and completed the book in nine days, at a cost of $9.80.

Few writers could match the inventiveness of his plots: a boy outwits a vampire by stuffing him with silver coins; a dinosaur mistakes a fog horn for a mating call; Ernest Hemingway is flown back to life on a time machine. In "The Illustrated Man," one of his most famous stories, a man's tattoo foretells a horrifying deed -- he will murder his wife.

Bradbury is survived by his four daughters. Marguerite Bradbury, his wife of 57 years, died in 2003.

AP writer Robert Jablon contributed to this report.