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    The Golden Apples of the Sun: And Other Stories
    Unavailable
    The Golden Apples of the Sun: And Other Stories
    Unavailable
    The Golden Apples of the Sun: And Other Stories
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Golden Apples of the Sun: And Other Stories

    Written by Ray Bradbury

    Narrated by Michael Prichard

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Audio
    Release dateOct 27, 2010
    ISBN9781400188215
    Unavailable
    The Golden Apples of the Sun: And Other Stories
    Author

    Ray Bradbury

    In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. An Emmy Award winner for his teleplay The Halloween Tree and an Academy Award nominee, he was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, among many honors.

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    Reviews for The Golden Apples of the Sun

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    • 4/5
      "A Sound of Thunder & Other Stories" is a collection of Ray Bradbury short stories published between 1943 and 1956. Originally published as "The Golden Apples of the Sun", the collection features 32 of Bradbury's best short stories. I read "A Sound Of Thunder" at school many years ago but I have always remembered it as one of the great sci-fi tales of all times. Ray Bradburys stories have a timeless appeal.
    • 5/5
      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."
    • 5/5
      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....
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      This is an incredibly short story that packs a punch. It's one of those simple as hell stories that makes you think for hours afterwards. Take Concept #1: At the heart of the story is a travel/safari company that advertizes, "Safaris to Any Year in the Past. You Name the Animal. We Take You There. You Kill It." Let that digest. That alone is definitely something to ponder. Concept #2: The main character of the story, Eckles, wants to kill a dinosaur. Not just any dinosaur, but the king of all prehistoric lizards - the tyrannosaurus rex. Contemplate that. What would it take to kill such a beast? Concept #3: the safari can only kill an animal predestined to die or else the future will hang in the balance. Kill the wrong thing and you might upset the whole apple cart of life as you know it. And guess what, Eckles accidentally kills a butterfly, upsetting the path to the present. Concept #4: before leaving present day Eckles learns that a benevolent leader has just beaten out a tyrannical dictator for President. You can see where this is going.
    • 5/5
      Good Lord, was this short story awesome. That's all I can say. Do read this if you're into the butterfly effect, time travel and all that mindblowing shiz.

      PS Ray Bradbury is now one of my favorite authors of all time in the dystopian genre.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      overall this was a great book. it's a collection which includes sci-fi, fantasy, and a couple regular fiction stories. a few of the stories were not to my liking so much but some of my favorites were The Fog Horn, The April Witch, The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl, The Murderer, Embroidery, Sun and Shadow, A Sound of Thunder, and The Exiles.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      When I found out Ray Bradbury died back in June, I was admittedly heartbroken. He was one of my first introductions to sci-fi, and aside from one book, I’ve always enjoyed his work. (Still not a fan of Something Wicked This Way Comes.) But admittedly, I haven’t read very much from Bradbury so I quickly rectified this.

      So I picked up this collection, notably containing “The Fog Horn” and “A Sound of Thunder,” to help bolster my collection. And I did like this collection. The both halves of the book contain more introspective slice-of-life tales that do take a darker look at the nostalgic days of childhood that Bradbury really likes (particularly with “I See You Never” and “The Big Black and White Game”) as well as genre-defying tales (STRONG reads for “The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind,” “Embroidery” and “The Exiles.”) And yet, there’s also ones that don’t work for me. (Like the aforementioned “A Sound of Thunder.” I know, classic but…I don’t know. Maybe because I know the twist already.)

      That said, I do like this collection, and would give it a fair shot to anyone l think would like a quick handful of short reads.
    • 4/5
      This book of short stories was hit or miss for me, though more hit than miss, especially the scifi stories.The opening story, "The Fog Horn," was haunting and beautiful. I really enjoyed it, though that's not too surprising since it involved the sea.One day many years ago a man walked along and stood in the sound of the ocean on a cold sunless sure and said, "We need a voice to call across the water, to warn ships; I'll make one. I'll make a voice like all of time and all of the fog that ever was; I'll make a voice that is 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. I'll make 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. I'll make me sound and an apparatus and they'll call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life.The Fog Horn"The April Witch" was definitely creepy, definitely Bradbury.I really enjoyed "The Wilderness" - it was unique and I dug the scifi aspect.They floated in an immense sigh above a town already made remote by the little space between themselves and the Earth, a town receding behind them in a black river and coming up in a tidal wave of lights and color ahead, untouchable and a dream now, already smeared in their eyes with nostalgia, with a panic of memory that began before the thing itself was gone.The Wilderness"The Big Black and White Game" really got to me."The Murderer" was really telling of our current times, and prescient considering it was written in the 1950s."The Great Wide World Over There" was pretty depressing.The morning blew away on a wind, the morning flowed down the creek, the morning flew off with some ravens, and the sun burned on the cabin roof.The Great Wide World Over There"The Great Fire" cracked me up!The second part of the book, sort of second part, which started with a letter from the author, seemed to be made up of mostly scifi stories, which I enjoyed overall. I thought the first story following the note (which had sexist notes but was written in the 60s so I guess I can give it a pass), "R is for Rocket," was really good (again in spite of the sexist tone)."The End of the Beginning," about going into space to build a space station, was full of brilliant writing.All I know is it's really the end of the beginning. The Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age; from now on we'll lump all those together under one big name for when we walked on Earth and heard the birds at morning and cried with envy. Maybe we'll call it the Earth Age, or maybe the Age of Gravity. Millions of years we fought gravity. When we were amoebas and fish we struggled to get out of the sea without gravity crushing us. Once safe on the shore we fought to stand upright without gravity breaking our new invention, the spine, tried to walk without stumbling, run without falling. A billion years Gravity kept us home, mocked us with wind and clouds, cabbage moths and locusts. That's what's so really big about tonight . . . it's the end of old man Gravity and the age we'll remember him by, for once and all. I don't know where they'll divide the ages, at the Persians, who dreamt of flying carpets, or the Chinese, who all unknowing celebrated birthdays and New Years with strung ladyfingers and high skyrockets, or some minute, some incredible second in the next hour. But we're in at the end of a billion years trying, the end of something long and to us humans, anyway, honorable.

      Tonight, he thought, even if we fail with this first, we'll send a second and a third ship and move on out to all the planets and later, all the stars. We'll just keep going until the big words like immortal and forever take on meaning. Big words, yes, that's what we want. Continuity. Since our tongues first moved in our mouths we've asked. What does it all mean? No other question made sense, with death breathing down our necks. But just let us settle in on ten thousand worlds spinning around ten thousand alien suns and the question will fade away. Man will be endless and infinite, even as space is endless and infinite. Man will go on, as space goes on, forever. Individuals will die as always, but our history will reach as far as we'll ever need to see into the future, and with the knowledge of our survival for all time to come, we'll know security and thus the answer we've always searched for. Gifted with life, the least we can do is preserve and pass on the gift to infinity. That's a goal worth shooting for.The End of the Beginning

      There was "A Sound of Thunder," which was essentially the main attraction of this book. A movie by the same name came out a few years ago - and it was pretty laughably terrible. The original story is much better (albeit much shorter as well)."The Exiles" started off really eh but I liked the ending."Here There Be Tygers" was interesting to consider; it could be a Doctor Who story. But the Doctor wouldn't approve of Chatterton, whom I wanted to die right away (though that's not a very Doctor-y thought either). His thoughts were also reminiscent of Avatar.You have to beat a planet at its own game," said Chatterton. "Get in and rip it up, kill its snakes, poison its animals, dam its rivers, sow its fields, depollinate its air, mine it, nail it down, hack away at it, and get the blazes out from under when you have what you want. Otherwise, a planet will fix you good. You can't trust planets. They're bound to be different, bound to be bad, bound to be out to get you, especially this far out, a billion miles from nowhere, so you get them first. Tear their skin off, I say. Drag out the minerals and run away before the nightmare world explodes in your face. That's the way to treat them."Here There Be Tygers"Frost and Fire" was a compelling story.The nightmare of the living was begun.Frost and FireEnjoyed "The Time Machine" - it was sweet despite the subject matter.War's never a winning thing, Charlie. You just lose all the time, and the one who loses last asks for terms.The Time MachineI also enjoyed:- The Flying Machine- I See You Never- The Rocket- The Rocket ManI think this one is worth a read. Final rating: 3.5 stars.
    • 4/5
      A retrospective of the most well-known of Bradbury's early stories, this collection includes several classics, a few clunkers and a handful of surprising gems. Bradbury switches genres with ease, dabbling in science fiction, horror, fantasy and general fiction with ease."A Sound of Thunder" is the most well known story here, a tale of time travel and its possible consequences on the present. Many of the stories, especially those selected from his earlier collection R is for Rocket, center on a quaint notion of space travel. These tend to have not aged well.My personal favorite was "Frost and Fire", a tale of a group of humans stranded on a Mercury-like planet; due to the intense heat of daytime and the subzero temperatures at night, they can only venture out of their caves at dawn and dusk for an hour each time. Due to the planet's proximity to its star, the radiation has altered their metabolism so that their lifespan lasts 8 days; in those 8 days they experience birth, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood, middle age, old age and death. One young man attempts to escape the planet and its 8 day death sentence.Overall, even the less refined stories deserve a perusal as Bradbury turns a phrase like few other writers.