ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 7, 1996 TAG: 9612090008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DORIAN BENKOIL ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ray Bradbury may be the best-known science fiction and fantasy writer alive, but he flinches when reminded he's famous.
It's not the fame, or the money that has motivated him to write 500 short stories, dozens of screenplays, help design Disney's Epcot Center and consult for city planners. It's ``love,'' he says.
And, the best thing about his latest book tour, he says, is the ``love'' he gets from fans.
``You write so that people will like what you do, and come up to you on the street and say, `I love you,''' he said in an interview, tilting back his head, his hair falling over the collar of his brown, tweed jacket. ``That's what you want when you're 15, but you don't get.''
Bradbury's latest book, ``Quicker Than the Eye,'' is his first collection in more than eight years and has spurred him to take his first nationwide book tour in his long literary career.
The 21 stories in the book paint a whimsical, fantastic and sometimes terrifying portrait of memories from Bradbury's 76 years of life.
``Exchange'' tells of a young man who, like Bradbury, went back to his hometown library to visit the ``friends'' he'd made in the books he borrowed, 10 at a time.
In ``Another Fine Mess,'' two women hear ghosts whose voices belong to Laurel and Hardy, the slapstick actors who enthralled Bradbury on a trip he made to Ireland 40 years ago.
In ``Dorian in Excelsus,'' an amorphous blob absorbs the evils of beautiful men in a ``gymnasium,'' actually a sex palace that greatly upset Bradbury when he went to see it with a friend 30 years ago.
The book is dedicated - ``with love'' - to Donn Albright, the owner of 5,000 of Bradbury's writings and a close friend of 20 years.
It's also the first book with his new publisher, Avon, where he switched after feeling neglected at Knopf. At Avon, ``I've got a whole family of new people,'' he said.
Bradbury first gained widespread notice in 1950 with ``The Martian Chronicles,'' a series of vignettes about rapacious Earthmen destroying the red planet. It has sold more than 3 million copies.
He gained even wider attention from ``Fahrenheit 451,'' his book on censorship and book-burning, when director Francois Truffaut made it into a movie in 1966.
Since then, he's won some of the most prestigious awards in his field, including the Hugo and Nebula, and is the ``world's greatest science fiction writer,'' he said.
He then abashedly disavowed the remark, and said he'd been joking.
``It's the work that counts, not any reputation.'' he said. ``My solution to the problem is not knowing that I'm Ray Bradbury.''
It has taken him this long to go on a nationwide book tour because he didn't overcome his fear of flying until he forced himself - with the help of three martinis - about 10 years ago.
Bradbury's work habits have never changed. He is still ``jolted'' awake by ``muses,'' then pounds out stories on a typewriter for four hours every morning.
``I write them impulsively. They're explosions. Nothing's ever researched,'' he said. ``I write them from beginning to end in two hours, and they never change.''
Last year, he said, he wrote parts of two novels, a couple of screenplays, seven ``straight plays'' and ``a lot of poetry.''
After moving with his family to Los Angeles at the age of 14, Bradbury hounded comedian George Burns until Burns finally used a gag the young man had written - the first piece of Bradbury writing anyone ever used.
His first sale came at age 21, a collaboration with Henry Hasse called ``Pendulum,'' to ``Super Science Stories.''
Because he loves writing and literature, he persevered into his late 30s, when he could finally make a living from words. (He lived with his parents until he was 27, and sold newspapers for a while.) Because he loves dinosaurs, a friend hired him to write a screenplay about the beasts.
Bradbury recently started working on a new novel but doesn't yet know what it's about.
``Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. You must never talk about something you're doing. You destroy the impulse,'' he said.
It's other people, he said, who have labeled him a science fiction writer.
``I've never written science fiction. That myth got started, and it's never stopped. `The Martian Chronicles' is fantasy,'' he said. ``The only novel that's true science fiction is `Fahrenheit 451.'''
His newest title, ``Quicker Than the Eye,'' comes from one of its stories, about a magic show reminiscent of one that excited Bradbury's imagination when he saw it at age 8 while growing up in Waukegan, Ill.
In the book's afterword, Bradbury writes that, ``frozen with awe'' for hours, he discovered what to do with his life.
``I knew I must become a magician. That's what happened, isn't it?'' he asks. ``I pretend to do one thing, cause you to blink, and in the instant seize 20 bright silks out of a bottomless hat.''
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Ray Bradbury's newest book, ``Quicker Than theby CNBEye,'' is his first collection with his new publisher, Avon. color.