The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning, along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires, and he enjoys his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames. He never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid and a professor who told him of a future in which people could think. Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do.
Ray Bradbury, one of the most popular science fiction writers in the world, is the author of more than five hundred short stories, novels, plays, and poems, including The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man. He has won many awards, including the Grand Masters Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America.