Bradbury: Mars or No Place

By Stephen M. Silverman

07/06/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

As he is about to receive the lifetime achievement award at this week's National Book Awards ceremony, "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Martian Chronicles" author Ray Bradbury, 80, still has a few more words to say about the future. In an interview with The New York Times, the fantasy writer (he prefers not being called a science fiction writer) says that if there were one invention from the last 100 years that he would eradicate, it would be "the automobile. We've killed two million people now. It's been a major war, and we're not paying any attention to it." But does the man who chronicled the Red Planet wish he'd gone to Mars? "Sure, of course. But since it's not going to happen, I don't worry about it." For that matter, he says, a visit to Russia's Mir space station wouldn't satisfy him. "It's a bore," he told The Times. "Who wants to be up there, just traveling around the earth, doing nothing?"