Closing the Book

Chapter 45 concludes Bradbury Beyond Apollo with an assessment of his legacy, prefaced by an account of the memorial to Bradbury staged by the Planetary Society as the Mars rover Curiosity landed in early August 2012. Chapter 45 wraps up the three-volume biography with a summary of the well-known early story collections and novels that anchor Bradbury’s twenty-first century reputation, and a parallel summation of the important achievements of the last forty years of his career. These include The Halloween Tree’s affirmation of life over death, the six-year run of Ray Bradbury Theater, the role of “The Toynbee Convector” as Bradbury’s settled view on human endeavor, his visionary but sometimes controversial articles, and his delicate but compelling Somewhere a Band Is Playing.