The Golden Apples of the Sun

by Ray Bradbury

Paperback, 1981

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Genres

Publication

Bantam Books (1981), 211 pages

Description

Fiction. Literature. Science Fiction. Short Stories. Ray Bradbury is a modern cultural treasure. His disarming simplicity of style underlies a towering body of work unmatched in metaphorical power by any other American storyteller. And here are thirty-two of his most famous tales-prime examples of the poignant and mysterious poetry that Bradbury uniquely uncovers in the depths of the human soul, the otherwordly portraits that spring from the canvas of one of the century's great men of imagination. From a lonely coastal lighthouse to a sixty-million-year-old safari, from the pouring rain of Venus to the ominous silence of a murder scene, Ray Bradbury is our sure-handed guide not only to surprising and outrageous manifestations of the future but also to the wonders of the present that we could never have imagined on our own. Track List for The Golden Apples of the Sun: Disc 1 "The Fog Horn"-Track 1 "The April Witch"-Track 8 "The Wilderness"-Track 16 "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl"-Track 23 Disc 2 "The Flying Machine"-Track 6 "The Murderer"-Track 10 "The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind"-Track 17 "I See You Never"-Track 21 "Embroidery"-Track 24 Disc 3 "The Big Black and White Game"-Track 1 "The Great Wide World Over There"-Track 9 "Powerhouse"-Track 18 Disc 4 "En La Noche"-Track 1 "Sun and Shadow"-Track 4 "The Meadow"-Track 10 "The Garbage Collector"-Track 22 Disc 5 "The Great Fire"-Track 1 "The Golden Apples of the Sun"-Track 6 "R Is for Rocket"-Track 12 "The End of the Beginning"-Track 24 Disc 6 "The Rocket"-Track 1 "The Rocket Man"-Track 9 "A Sound of Thunder"-Track 18 Disc 7 "The Long Rain"-Track 3 "The Exiles"-Track 13 "Here There Be Tygers"-Track 24 Disc 8 "The Strawberry Window"-Track 10 "The Dragon"-Track 18 "Frost and Fire"-Track 20 Disc 10 "Uncle Einar"-Track 7 "The Time Machine"-Track 14 "The Sound of Summer Running"-Track 21.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member jburlinson

There are many reasons to read Bradbury, even at this relatively late date. For one, you can't deny his originality; he was amost always there very early, if not exactly first, whether thematically (e.g., the plight of the immigrant, "I See You Never") or conceptually (e.g., the perils of

irresponsible time travel, "A Sound of Thunder.") Then, there is his range: from folk tale ("Invisible Boy") to satire ("Sun and Shadow") to comic suspense ("The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl"). Primarily, though, there is Bradbury's inimitable use of language: a curious amalgam of plain-spokenness with imprecision that results, if you're reading quickly, which he usually cons you into doing, with a vaguely unsettling sense that you're in an odd world where the dots don't connect. Consider an early sentence in the first story of this collection ("The Fog Horn"), where the narrator is describing the lighthouse where he works -- "And if they did not see our light, then there was always our Voice, the great deep cry of our Fog Horn shuddering through the rigs of mist to startle gulls away like packs of scattered cards and make the waves turn high and foam." While we are likely to pause and appreciate the comparison of frightened sea birds to scattered playing cards, we're subtly discouraged to linger and ask how exactly the sound of a foghorn can make waves rise or foam. Bradbury doesn't want us to ask that question; he is setting us up. He can usually get us every time.

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LibraryThing member andyray

So many of these "stories" are vignettes or slices of life. While Bradbury's writing quality makes them readable, if you have less than 10 years to live and can only read 50 books a year, skip this one. otherwise, well, it IS Bradbury and there are two above average "stories" in this collection:

"The Fog Horn," where a well-written sea monster mates with a lighthouse, and "Sounds of Thunder" involving the "manly" art of hunting (T-rex, in this case). The fact that I cannot remember what the other stories are "about", you will, or their titles, speaks for itself.

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LibraryThing member RBeffa

When this collection of Bradbury's was first published in early 1953 it was made up almost entirely of recent short stories. Later collections recycled material from this collection as well as including older stories not previously collected. Most of these stories had appeared in recent major

magazines of the era. Since I have recently read several of these stories such as "The Fog Horn," "The Pedestrian," and "A Sound of Thunder," the impact that this collection may have had on me as a fresh read was a little lessened I think. Nevertheless, this is very good storytelling by Bradbury at his peak. There are a couple weaker stories for my tastes, but overall this is one of Bradbury's best collections. There is a little bit of everything in here; a "Green Town" story that was later collected in "Summer Morning, Summer Night," as well as a story "The Wilderness" that was incorporated into the Martian Chronicles.

There is a 2014 book that includes a number of stories in addition to the original 22 stories from the original edition. (It looks like Golden Apples merged with R is for Rocket) My edition is the 1970 Bantam paperback. It has a nice pen and ink illusration for each story. The artist isn't identified, but it looks like the work of Joe Mugnaini who has illustarted other Bradbury books. I enjoyed looking at the illustrations both before and after the story to see what the artist was capturing.

A few comments. "The Fog Horn" is wonderful classic Bradbury. "The April Witch" came close to crossing the line of the creepy factor when a 19 year old girl is possessed by the spirit of another girl and does things she wouldn't otherwise have done. "The Wilderness" is a strange piece of the Martian Chronicles. The future equivalent of mail order brides to Mars. "Mars Needs Women!" Actually it is more than that. While reading it I was also struck by the thought, not for the first time, that some of Bradbury's stories might work best when read aloud, somewhat slowly. So, much of this story I read slowly, mouthing pssages as if I was reading it aloud in my head, and it gave me a very different feeling of the writing here ... a good feeling.

There were a couple oddball stories in here that I wasn't wild about, like "The Fruit At the Bottom of the Bowl" where a man goes looney tunes after murdering the man who is going to run off with his wife, and the odd "Invisible Boy." Both are mainstream stories, nothing fantasy or otherwise in them although "Invisible Boy" pretends there is magic. "The Murderer" is a rather smart prediction and observation on society's cell-phone mania (although in this case the phones are all on wrist-radios). In the story the everywhere people on their phones and piped in music drives a man to begin "murdering" the devices.

Bradbury shows what a master of the short form he can be with a story like "Embroidery." Three pages long, simple idea, and very powerful. Three women are on a porch working on their embroidery and talking and we see, waiting for 5 O'clock ... the reader listens and waits with them.

"A Sound of Thunder" is a classic tale that inspired the phrase "The Butterfly Effect."

Unfortunately there were several stories in the collection I disliked or didn't care for or quite understand what Bradbury was going for. It marred the shine of the stronger stories. Overall the collection was worth reading.

The included stories of the original collection are:

• The Fog Horn • (1951) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Pedestrian • (1951) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The April Witch • (1952) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Wilderness • (1952) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl • (1948) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• Invisible Boy • (1945) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Flying Machine • (1953) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Murderer • (1953) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind • (1953) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• I See You Never • (1947) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• Embroidery • (1951) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Big Black and White Game • (1945) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• A Sound of Thunder • (1952) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Great Wide World Over There • (1952) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• Powerhouse • (1948) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• En La Noche • (1952) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• Sun and Shadow • (1953) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Meadow • (1953) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Garbage Collector • (1953) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Great Fire • (1949) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• Hail and Farewell • (1953) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• The Golden Apples of the Sun • (1953) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury

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LibraryThing member SidWilliams

Contains some great Bradbury stories including one of my favorites, "The Fog Horn," which often gets adapted as a giant monster story. There's a soul to the story that often gets lost in the adaptations. The wonderful "The April Witch" is included as well. All-in-all, a good mix of Bradbury tales.

LibraryThing member Waianuhea

Worth it just to have "A Sound of Thunder." All the stories are beautiful and well-written. You can expect no less from any Bradbury story or novel.

LibraryThing member rameau

So many great stories. "The Fog Horn." "A Sound of Thunder," one of the great time travel and dinosaur stories (the description of the T-Rex is sublime and awesome). "The Murderer," a great prediction of our always in touch world. And so many more.

LibraryThing member Durbies

Delightful collection of SF and non-SF short stories. Notable "A Sound of Thunder" on which the film "The Butterfly Effect" is based. "Frost and Fire "was my favourite

LibraryThing member TheCrow2

What can one say about another collection of short stories from the Master? It's clear that Bradbury isn't 'just' a SF writer, we have pure art here....

LibraryThing member Zmrzlina

I enjoyed most of the stories in this book, particularly;

"The Murderer," which I found to be so appropriate to life today! This is one of few stories that hasn't got an initial publication date noted, but I guess it would be early 1950. Even though the technology that drives the main character to

"murder" is not exactly as Bradbury imagined it would be, it is close enough to make me go "Wow!"

"Sun and Shadow," which made me feel guilty about the times I've found life that is on the verge of abject poverty "picturesque."

And I also enjoyed;

"The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind," which illustrates zero-sum-game quite nicely all the while pretending to be a fairytale.

"The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl," which made me shiver with delighted horror.

"The Great Wide World Over There," which make me quite sad, though filled me with a longing to write letters to strangers who live in remote places.

And one that I couldn't decide if I loved for itself, or just because it features a lighthouse. I moved to Pittsburgh from a seaside town just south of Boston last year and, besides my two adult children, I miss the lighthouses the most. The story is the first in the book, "The Fog Horn."

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LibraryThing member NinieB

I have always thought of Ray Bradbury of a science fiction author, but based on this collection I have been thinking of him much too narrowly. Some of the stories are fantasy, some horror, some straight fiction, some in fact sci-fi.

One story that stood out is "The Murderer", because it was science

fiction in 1953, when the collection was published, but would seem to have much more resonance now.

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LibraryThing member AshRyan

This edition actually contains most of the stories from the collection R Is for Rocket as well as those from the original Golden Apples of the Sun collection, and I had already read the former and so was already familiar with quite a few of these stories, but if you haven't this is a good way to

enjoy them all at once. The Golden Apples stories are a bit of a mixed bag, most are pretty interesting but there are a few duds, though none are really bad. The R Is for Rocket stories are a bit more consistent and also more thematically related, and most of them are more science-fiction, while the Golden Apples stories also include some fantasy, suspense, mystery, even a couple of attempts at Confucian allegory set in ancient China ("The Flying Machine" and "The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind").

There are some seminal stories here, such as "A Sound of Thunder", which were really influential in the history of science-fiction (and even perhaps of science, as it introduced what came to be called the "butterfly effect" in chaos theory), and which everyone needs to read in order to get all the pop culture references. Another significant story here, or at least the longest, is "Frost and Fire", which is enormously inventive but not entirely successful. It tells the story of a race of people descended from humans crash-landed on Mercury, who've evolved as a result of the extreme temperatures of the planet's day and night cycle to an extremely fast-paced, eight-day lifespan. They've also evolved racial memory, and the main character decides to try to return to the one remaining crashed spaceship to see if there are any keys to returning to their ancestors longer, more slowly-paced way of life. This is an interesting idea, but it gets bogged down for long stretches in the middle with pointless romantic rivalries and battles with a competing tribe who live in better caves that extend their lifespan an extra few days.

In general, this is a solid collection, with some of Bradbury's best stories, but not one of his best books on the whole. But, like almost everything he wrote, definitely worth at least a read.

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LibraryThing member Paul-the-well-read

Golden Apples of the Sun collects several early Ray Bradbury stories into one volume. It is a delight to read. I had first read it in the early 1970's as a sort of escape from the heavier reading of my college coursework and decided recently to give it another read since so much time had passed

since my first reading of it. I was surprised to see that at least two of the stories had been so powerful that I recalled them well even across all those years.
Before reading Bradbury in the 70's, I was a sort of literary snob about only spending time reading the classics and other high quality work. To me, Science Fiction did not fit that criteria, being escapist reading at best. But my exposure to Bradbury changed that juvenile perception and judgment and opened up an entirely new area of writing to read, enjoy and even learn from. From this experience, I think I largely overcame my snob's approach to reading and learned that the real definition of a good book is that it is one that keeps the reader engaged, makes him want to see what the next word is, what the next chapter holds and where the story leads. It is a book that causes the reader to sigh when the last page is read, opening the hope that the next book will be just as good.
FromThe Golden Apples, Bradbury went on to write many wonderful books and his influence went on to open me to works that would have escaped m notice had I not started with the best.

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LibraryThing member kevn57

This is a reread for me, first read back in the late 60's early 70s. The book has lots of great stories but my favorites were The Fog Horn (1951), The Flying Machine (1953), The Murderer (1953), The Meadow (1953) in no particular order.

LibraryThing member Castlelass

This collection of thirty-three short stories includes an assortment of science fiction, fantasy, and realism. As in most of these types of collections, I liked some stories more than others. One of my favorites is The Murderer (which is not about murder). It is about a man who is annoyed by the

intrusion of electronic devices. It includes a wrist radio, which is similar in concept to the modern cell phone and was written in 1953. The protagonist questions the value of these technological advances and has taken to destroying them. I can only imagine what he would have thought of today’s social media! Another favorite is Frost and Fire, which tells of a civilization in which people live an entire lifetime in eight days. Overall, I found this collection well-written and creative, and particularly enjoyed the science fiction entries.

The Foghorn – 3 stars
The April Witch – 3
The Wilderness – 3.5
The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl – 3.5
The Flying Machine – 3
The Murderer – 5
The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind – 3
I See You Never –3
Embroidery – 2
The Big Black and White Game – 1
The Great Wide World Over There – 3
Powerhouse – 4
En la Noche – 3.5
Sun and Shadow – 4
The Meadow – 3
The Garbage Collector – 3
The Great Fire – 3
Hail and Farewell – 3
The Golden Apples of the Sun – 4
R is for Rocket – 4
The End of the Beginning – 4
The Rocket – 4
The Rocket Man – 4
A Sound of Thunder – 3.5
The Long Rain – 4
The Exiles – 4
Here There Be Tygers – 2
The Strawberry Window – 3
The Dragon – 3.5
Frost and Fire – 5
Uncle Einar – 4
The Time Machine – 3.5
The Sound of Summer Running – 3.5

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LibraryThing member wvlibrarydude

The first few stories were 3 stars. Starting around Golden apples the stories became much better. Bradbury is wordsmith when it comes to short fiction. He has a keen sense on how to flesh the language out to make story richer. Enjoy!

LibraryThing member pynchon82

It is tempting to give this book five stars simply because it is by Ray Bradbury. But a couple of the stories in this collection are clunkers. The majority of these tales, however, are a goldmine of essential Ray Bradbury, back when he was in the prime of his career.

Favorites include:

"The Fog

Horn" -- in which a sea serpent unsuccessfully attempts to mate with a lighthouse.

"The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" -- A murderer has a breakdown imagining all of the places he might have left his fingerprints.

"The Great Wide World Over There" -- A valuable lesson is learned in this amusing yarn. Yes, the receiving of mail can make you feel important, but it does you no good if you cannot read it.

"The Meadow" -- An anti-war rant disguised as a short story about a movie studio night watchman who follows behind a demolition crew, rebuilding all that they destroy.

"The Great Fire" -- In an O. Henry-esque twist, a burdened couple discover that perhaps their daughter isn't nearly as engaged as they thought.

"Hail and Farewell" -- An old man trapped in a young child's body pulls an elaborate con on a string of unsuspecting parents who adopt him.

And then, my personal favorite, "A Sound of Thunder", in which a major corporation offers hunters the opportunity to go back in time and hunt prehistoric game.

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LibraryThing member JBreedlove

Reading this for the second time. My son came home telling me they read an RB short story at high school so I pulled one off the shelf. many of his stories are overly nostalgic. Written in the early 50's about being a kid in the 20's with the on coming space age being grafted onto his thoughts. But

here were classics like A Sound of Thunder and my favorite Here There Be Tygers. But Frost and Fire was the best. Powerhouse and Uncle Einar and Dragon were god as well.

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