A Sound of Thunder

Bradbury, Ray. A Sound of Thunder & Other Stories. New York: HarperCollins. 1990. Print.

First Sentences:

Out there in the cold water, far from land, we waited every night for the coming of the fog, and it came, and we oiled the brass machinery and lit the fog light up in the stone tower.

Feeling like two birds in the gray sky, McDunn and I sent the light touching out, red, then white, then red again, to eye the lonely ships..

Description:

After reading any one of the science fiction/fantasy stories in Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder & Other Stories, I had to put the book down and reflect. The plot, the characters, the writing were so strong, so real, so interesting that I couldn't just plunge into the next story right away. I needed time to roll the images and events over and over in my mind. Read a sample sentence for yourself.

The darkness like a velvet shroud hung before her to be stroked by a trembling hand, with the darkness like a black panther breathing there, looking at her with unlit eyes...

With none of the usual ray guns and aliens often found in sci-fi/fantasy literature, A Sound of Thunder gives tales of people facing challenges familiar to all of us: love, uncertainty, obsession, racism, decision, and adventure. Yet each one is told in a unique voice, making the situation and people uniquely fascinating and compelling. Here's what I mean:

• A lighthouse fog horn that calls out to the lonely ocean and a creature millions of years old responds;

• A rocket ship pilot, on leave with his family at his home, simply cannot resist the call of space;

• A baseball game at a resort between the white guests and the black staff;

• A murderer obsessed with erasing every fingerprint he might have left at the crime scene;

• A hunter who time-travels back to confront a T-Rex;

• A young woman who contemplates her impending rocket ride to Mars where she will marry her waiting boyfriend.

These are people with dreams, with pride, morals, passion, and of course greed, bigotry, and ego. Each story is written by a master of words, sucking you into the plot and motivations immediately and hold on through the final paragraph. 

[The foghorn's voice was] like an empty bed beside you all night long, and like an empty house when you open the door, and like trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore....a sound that's so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their souls, and hearths will seem warmer, and being inside will seem better to all who hear it in the distant towns....whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life.

And that's just one random paragraph, full of Bradbury's images and imagination. In A Sound of Thunder, you have 300+ pages of equally compelling, breath-taking writing. Simply the best characters, plots and writing there is. 

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles

Chronological science fiction stories about the exploration of Mars by Man, from the first ships to the final days of Earth. Fabulous. (previously reviewed here)