Ray Bradbury dead: Fahrenheit 451 author dies aged 91

Ray Bradbury has died in Los Angeles, his family has confirmed. He was 91.

The author was a legend in the science-fiction genre for works such as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man.

He passed away last night, his daughter Alexandra told the Associated Press today.

Sci-fi blog iO9 spoke to Bradbury's grandson, Danny Karapetian, who said his grandfather had influenced "so many artists, writers, teachers, scientists."

"His legacy lives on in his monumental body of books, film, television and theater, but more importantly, in the minds and hearts of anyone who read him, because to read him was to know him," Karapetian told the site. "He was the biggest kid I know."

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Bradbury was born in Waukegan, northern Illinois, in 1920.

As well as dozens of novels, short stories and essays, he also wrote several screenplays for film and television. He continued to write daily until the end of his life, according to the AP, even despite a stroke that put him in a wheelchair.

The Los Angeles Times said that Bradbury's work had helped win science fiction new respect: "Some say he singlehandedly helped to move the genre into the realm of literature."

"People call me a science fiction writer, but I don't think that's quite true," Bradbury wrote on his website. "I think that I'm a magician who is capable of making things appear and disappear right in front of you and you don't know how it happened."

He was awarded a National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2000, the National Medal of Arts in 2004 and a special citation from the Pulitzer Board in 2007, for "his distinguished, prolific, and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy."

NASA named an asteroid after him, 9766 Bradbury, in recognition of the inspiration he offered to young scientists and engineers.