Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury‘s classic science fiction novel about book burning and censorship, has just been released as an eBook. Simon & Schuster has released the eBook today in advance of a new paperback edition that comes out this fall.

eBookNewser has more: “Simon & Schuster’s Jonathan Karp [called it]  ‘a rare and wonderful opportunity to continue our relationship with this beloved and canonical author and to bring his works to new a generation of readers and in new formats.’”

This comes as a surprise, since the 91-year old author has dismissed eBooks and eReaders in the past. The Associated Press explained: “Bradbury himself has been an emphatic defender of traditional paper texts, saying that e-books ‘smell like burned fuel’ and calling the Internet nothing but ‘a big distraction.’”