High Noon: Ray Bradbury, communist?

NASA scientists named the Curiosity touch-down area Bradbury Landing after writer Ray Bradbury, seen on screen, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on Wednesday.

Newser) – Ray Bradbury’s criticism of the government got him investigated by the FBI in the 1960s as a suspected Communist sympathizer, according to FBI files obtained by the Huffington Post via a FOIA request. Bradbury was reported to the FBI by screenwriter Martin Berkeley, who years earlier had told the House Un-American Activities Committee he himself was a Communist and informed on 155 supposedly active Hollywood communists. Berkeley told the FBI that science fiction writers in particular were likely to be Communists. More here.

The Illustrated Man was the first science fiction book I ever read. Still a great read. What’s your favorite Ray Bradbury book, or are you not science fiction fan?