Tuesday, March 27, 2007

New Bradbury Book

Sci Fi Weekly features an interview with author Ray Bradbury. Bradbury is the author of 35 books and numerous short stories, including Fahrenheit 451. At the age of 86, he is about to release his next book Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451.
...Match to Flame, will be all about my unconsciously leading the way to Fahrenheit 451, which I wrote in the autumn of 1950. I wrote it in nine days at the library of UCLA. Down in the basement, I found a typing room where I could rent a typewriter for 10 cents a half-hour. I moved in with a bag of dimes and I spent $9.80, and nine days later I finished Fahrenheit 451 in its first version, which is 25,000 words....Two years later, Ballantine Books came to me and said, "We love your story The Firemen [the original title]. If you find a new title for it and add words to it, we'll publish it." So I sat down, wrote an additional 25,000 words and changed the title from The Firemen to Fahrenheit 451.


Ironically, Bradbury's publisher removed swear words from Fahrenheit 451 without his knowledge.

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