Simon & Schuster released an e-book edition of Ray Bradbury’s science fiction classic “Fahrenheit 451” on Tuesday. First published in 1953, “Fahrenheit 451” is a dystopia in which reading is banned and it is the job of firefighters to burn books. 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which paper burns.
The irony of releasing an e-book edition of a novel built around the death of print books was not lost on Bradbury, which is why he resisted the e-book idea. The Associated Press reports that the author was dismissive of the form, saying that e-books “smell like burned fuel.” Bradbury, a noted futurist who at one time was a consultant for NASA, told the New York Times in 2009 that the Internet is “meaningless; it’s not real…. It’s in the air somewhere.”
But the 91-year-old author has since changed his mind — about e-books, at least. Hence “451” is available to digital readership.
Full article in the LA Times
NPR also has this related piece: Fahrenheit 451: What’s The Temperature At Which E-Books Burn?
Ray Bradbury – The Fireman
“The Fireman” is a novella that was the precursor to Fahrenheit 451. The Novella can be found in the February 1951 issue of Galaxy. It was also printed in the book – Science Fiction Origins –
If your library has “Science Fiction Origins” hang on to it. Copies of “The Fireman” are hard to come by.
Here is the Worldcat record forScience Fiction Origins
Book on Amazon (ISBN 0445046260)
Well…
He could have just said that the price for an e-book copy is $451!
“The Fireman” also appears in Pleasure to Burn, from last year
paperback is $11 on amazon.