The last of The Big Four is dead. The Big Four of Sci-fi were actually only three and none other than Robert A. Heinlein (1988), Isaac Asimov (1992),and Arthur C. Clarke (2008) but not including Ray Bradbury in this group is ignoring his unique contribution to the world of Sci-fi. Bradbury who passed away on June 5th, this year was different from the other three in that technically he was not a science fiction writer but just a writer. His works did not include detailed descriptions of starships, sentient computers or humanized robots. He focused more on the characters and the situation itself, only that his most well-known stories are set in the future, one that is not mechanized but only a projection of what we have now and who we are at the moment. By association his readers "decided" he was a Sci-fi writer though science is nearly absent from his works if not absent at all. Besides there are those works of his that were not set in the future and are pure fantasy. His ideas were, as those of most innovative writers, well ahead of his time: he talked about mutants when no one was doing it (The Small Assassin) and even topics considered taboo in his time such as homosexuality.
It is difficult to measure how much all of the Big Four together or even each one separatedly contributed to the world of Science Fiction but one thing is certain: it will be really difficult to reach their level of creativity and innovation. Each one saw into the future and decided to share aspects of their vision with us and mankind has been forever changed becuase of what they told us.
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