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Asleep in Armageddon
This book has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies and hence the text is clear and readable.
32 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1948
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254 people want to read
About the author
Ray Bradbury
2,560 books25.3k followersRay Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.
Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).
The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).
The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
September 1, 2023
This is the story of the pilot who crashlanded into an unknown planet. He requests help to get out of the planet. But unfortunately, they will reach the planet only after a few days. He noticed the peculiar nature of that place. As soon as he falls asleep, he feels possessed by some spirit. He decides to skip sleep for nearly a week to escape from this situation. Will he escape from the planet? Will he succumb to the hallucinations due to lack of sleep? Will he get possessed by the spirit? The author answers it in this book.
My favorite three lines from this book.
This short, engaging book will be a good choice if you are a science fiction fan.
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My favorite three lines from this book.
“He was their universe. The world of his thoughts, his brain, his skull, divided into camps, that of Iorr, that of Tylle. They were using him!"
"Occupation, cried the voices.
Spaceman! he cried, alone in the night."
"Our minds, fool, our minds! What is a body without a mind?"
What is a mind without a body, laughed Leonard Sale. I've got you there. Admit it, I've got you!"
This short, engaging book will be a good choice if you are a science fiction fan.
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July 10, 2019
Always spoiler free. This is a 21 page sweet little scifi story with a touch of horror all served up Twilight Zone style. I found this to be unlike any other scifi I have ever read and really enjoyed the unique events and the unexpected ending. I recommend this quick read to all scifi fans.
January 12, 2024
Space travel may have an adverse effect on mental health
Read
July 3, 2024Panic in pain
more noises natural song
death talk to sky mountin sea
coffey cant walk right to my brain
nasty night come
solatir fire radio cants tell tals walk death away
where Shahrazad to tell
icy death hand take me ove many dove
survive to come the help
but nasty laugher come
crash war hell
that my memory
face of saint cry river of emotion
face of sinner one cry win to death
its not sogar or flower trep
many dream come true
and how can i find chang of fate to me.
more noises natural song
death talk to sky mountin sea
coffey cant walk right to my brain
nasty night come
solatir fire radio cants tell tals walk death away
where Shahrazad to tell
icy death hand take me ove many dove
survive to come the help
but nasty laugher come
crash war hell
that my memory
face of saint cry river of emotion
face of sinner one cry win to death
its not sogar or flower trep
many dream come true
and how can i find chang of fate to me.
August 25, 2017
Would make for an interesting Dr Who episode
December 10, 2019
This is an amazing story in which the author put in an incredibly strong imagination. It’s a pity that this is a short story and not a big novel.
December 21, 2022
Əsərin qorxulu olması bir yana, möhtəşəm audiokitab versiyasının rastıma çatmağı, mükəmməl səsləndirmə, üstəgəl gecə saatlarında dinləməyim, əsərə dəhşət dolu bir həyəcan qatdı. Çox bəyəndim!
November 17, 2024
An early book with some unusual (weird) turns of phase like “he mouthed the coffee.” Ummm… what now?
Not a bad story, but certainly not his best work (might explain why the copyright wasn’t renewed).
Not a bad story, but certainly not his best work (might explain why the copyright wasn’t renewed).
January 5, 2022
I enjoyed this book a place that seems peaceful and safe can actually hold terrors . The mind can become a battle ground with thoughts that live on forever . I read Fahrenheit 451 and wanted to read more of his works so I figured short stories was a good place to start .
January 11, 2026
Asleep in Armageddon is a Bradbury short story that begins with relief and then slowly turns into dread you can feel in your bones. On the surface it feels like a simple space crash tale: astronaut Leonard Sale survives a shipwreck on Planetoid 787, finds breathable air, food, a working radio, and sends out a rescue signal. Six days alone doesn’t seem like a sentence. It seems like rest and recovery. But that ease is the first trap Bradbury sets in place, and to miss that is to miss the whole point.
Sale doesn’t just crash on a quiet world. He is soon beset by voices in his head ancient, relentless, and impossible to ignore. The story turns psychological almost immediately. Whispered calls to sleep become a chorus of voices that spin into nightmare armies, ancient warriors of Iorr and Tylle fighting inside his skull.
These specters are not just hallucinations. They embody a creeping, chaotic intrusion into Sale’s sense of self and reality itself. He tries to stay awake, believing wakefulness means control. But the voices keep pulling him toward sleep, toward surrender.
What makes this story work is Bradbury’s unrelenting focus on the terror of the inner landscape. The world around Sale is benign warm sun, safe air, food to eat, and a radio that once worked. The threat comes from within, from the collision of memory and madness, examined like a battlefield in Sale’s mind.
That shift from external survival to internal struggle is what gives Asleep in Armageddon weight. It is not about alien attacks or physical danger. It is about the slow breakdown of coherence when sleep, memory, and identity begin to blur and assault each other.
Bradbury’s prose in this piece feels deliberate and almost hypnotic. He draws you into the rhythm of Sale’s deteriorating mind, so you feel the pull toward rest and the rising panic that comes with every whisper of Sleep, sleep, die, sleep, die. The story captures the horror of losing control of one’s own thoughts, of becoming a haunted stage where voices, battles, and fractured identities push and pull until the self dissolves.
As a piece of short speculative fiction, Asleep in Armageddon stands apart because it uses the vastness of space not as a backdrop for spectacle but as a canvas for psychological unraveling. The planetoid, the crash, the rescue signal all feels almost incidental once Sale’s inner war begins. Bradbury shows that the scariest battles are often those fought within the human mind.
Sharp, unsettling, and smarter than its straightforward premise would suggest, this story leaves you thinking not about aliens or planets, but about the way human consciousness can become its own prison if pushed just a little too far. It also leaves open what may or may not happen to his would-be rescuers in the end.
Sale doesn’t just crash on a quiet world. He is soon beset by voices in his head ancient, relentless, and impossible to ignore. The story turns psychological almost immediately. Whispered calls to sleep become a chorus of voices that spin into nightmare armies, ancient warriors of Iorr and Tylle fighting inside his skull.
These specters are not just hallucinations. They embody a creeping, chaotic intrusion into Sale’s sense of self and reality itself. He tries to stay awake, believing wakefulness means control. But the voices keep pulling him toward sleep, toward surrender.
What makes this story work is Bradbury’s unrelenting focus on the terror of the inner landscape. The world around Sale is benign warm sun, safe air, food to eat, and a radio that once worked. The threat comes from within, from the collision of memory and madness, examined like a battlefield in Sale’s mind.
That shift from external survival to internal struggle is what gives Asleep in Armageddon weight. It is not about alien attacks or physical danger. It is about the slow breakdown of coherence when sleep, memory, and identity begin to blur and assault each other.
Bradbury’s prose in this piece feels deliberate and almost hypnotic. He draws you into the rhythm of Sale’s deteriorating mind, so you feel the pull toward rest and the rising panic that comes with every whisper of Sleep, sleep, die, sleep, die. The story captures the horror of losing control of one’s own thoughts, of becoming a haunted stage where voices, battles, and fractured identities push and pull until the self dissolves.
As a piece of short speculative fiction, Asleep in Armageddon stands apart because it uses the vastness of space not as a backdrop for spectacle but as a canvas for psychological unraveling. The planetoid, the crash, the rescue signal all feels almost incidental once Sale’s inner war begins. Bradbury shows that the scariest battles are often those fought within the human mind.
Sharp, unsettling, and smarter than its straightforward premise would suggest, this story leaves you thinking not about aliens or planets, but about the way human consciousness can become its own prison if pushed just a little too far. It also leaves open what may or may not happen to his would-be rescuers in the end.
January 10, 2026
This story feels like Bradbury whispering a nightmare rather than declaring one. The story unsettled me not through spectacle, but through atmosphere—a sense of cosmic dislocation that presses quietly on the mind.
From the moment the narrator awakens alone on an alien planet, the story carries the weight of abandonment, as though humanity itself has stepped out of the room and forgotten to come back.
What struck me immediately is how disoriented the narrator feels—not just physically, but morally and temporally.
He has been left behind by history. Earth has moved on, wars have passed, alliances have shifted, and he is stranded outside relevance. Bradbury captures a uniquely modern anxiety here: the fear of waking up and discovering that meaning has relocated without you.
The alien beings in the story are fascinating precisely because they are not overtly hostile. They are patient, watchful, and incomprehensible. Their indifference is more terrifying than aggression. Reading these sections, I felt the same unease that arises when confronted with systems or powers that do not recognise human values—not because they oppose them, but because they simply don’t register.
Bradbury’s prose, as always, is lyrical, but here the lyricism feels subdued, almost mournful. There is a sadness running through the story, a sense that the universe is vast and human significance is conditional. The title itself suggests exhaustion—not just physical sleep, but a moral and historical sleep that leaves humanity vulnerable to being overwritten.
What stayed with me most is the story’s refusal to offer reassurance. The narrator’s fate is not resolved in a comforting way. There is no triumphant return, no last-minute rescue. Instead, Bradbury leaves us with ambiguity—an ending that feels less like a conclusion than an existential shrug. Humanity may survive, or it may not; the universe does not appear invested either way.
“Asleep in Armageddon” reads, to me, like a meditation on obsolescence. Not technological obsolescence, but existential obsolescence—the idea that civilisations, values, and even wars can become irrelevant.
Bradbury seems less interested in destruction than in neglect. The apocalypse here is not fire, but forgetting.
I finished the story feeling small, but not nihilistic. There is a strange humility in Bradbury’s vision. He reminds us that meaning is fragile and must be continuously renewed, or it slips quietly out of reach.
The story doesn’t frighten me with death; it frightens me with the possibility that nothing is waiting to witness it.
One of Bradbury's best short flicks. Most recommended.
From the moment the narrator awakens alone on an alien planet, the story carries the weight of abandonment, as though humanity itself has stepped out of the room and forgotten to come back.
What struck me immediately is how disoriented the narrator feels—not just physically, but morally and temporally.
He has been left behind by history. Earth has moved on, wars have passed, alliances have shifted, and he is stranded outside relevance. Bradbury captures a uniquely modern anxiety here: the fear of waking up and discovering that meaning has relocated without you.
The alien beings in the story are fascinating precisely because they are not overtly hostile. They are patient, watchful, and incomprehensible. Their indifference is more terrifying than aggression. Reading these sections, I felt the same unease that arises when confronted with systems or powers that do not recognise human values—not because they oppose them, but because they simply don’t register.
Bradbury’s prose, as always, is lyrical, but here the lyricism feels subdued, almost mournful. There is a sadness running through the story, a sense that the universe is vast and human significance is conditional. The title itself suggests exhaustion—not just physical sleep, but a moral and historical sleep that leaves humanity vulnerable to being overwritten.
What stayed with me most is the story’s refusal to offer reassurance. The narrator’s fate is not resolved in a comforting way. There is no triumphant return, no last-minute rescue. Instead, Bradbury leaves us with ambiguity—an ending that feels less like a conclusion than an existential shrug. Humanity may survive, or it may not; the universe does not appear invested either way.
“Asleep in Armageddon” reads, to me, like a meditation on obsolescence. Not technological obsolescence, but existential obsolescence—the idea that civilisations, values, and even wars can become irrelevant.
Bradbury seems less interested in destruction than in neglect. The apocalypse here is not fire, but forgetting.
I finished the story feeling small, but not nihilistic. There is a strange humility in Bradbury’s vision. He reminds us that meaning is fragile and must be continuously renewed, or it slips quietly out of reach.
The story doesn’t frighten me with death; it frightens me with the possibility that nothing is waiting to witness it.
One of Bradbury's best short flicks. Most recommended.
December 9, 2025
Not a bad story about a man's survival, after his rocket crashes on a planetoid in The Astroid Belt. To survive, Sale is forced to endure the threat of two psychological horrors that, are not only invading his mind while he sleeps, but trying to take it over.
The two horror are psychological remnants of two tyrants that destroyed this world in a final, apocalyptic war. They now want to regain some form of life through the use of Sale's mind, and refight their battle to the bitter end.
Whether there is some sort of idea about PTSD going on here, or these two entities actually exist, one is never sure.
What did make me happy though was that, when the two psychological horror entities, Lorr and Tylle became present, I was in great fear that the rest of the story would be an endless diatribe of patented Ray Bradbury verbiage. Going on and on and on about their histories, culture, battles, love life's, anger, hate, this, that, on and on and on...........
But thankfully that didn't happen.
Instead we got a fairly straightforward human interest story about Sale doing what he can to survive six days on this planetoid without any sleep. Not a bad read.
Too bad about the ending though. Poor Sale. Unfortunately, bitter irony is a classic tool in a storyteller's tool case.
The two horror are psychological remnants of two tyrants that destroyed this world in a final, apocalyptic war. They now want to regain some form of life through the use of Sale's mind, and refight their battle to the bitter end.
Whether there is some sort of idea about PTSD going on here, or these two entities actually exist, one is never sure.
What did make me happy though was that, when the two psychological horror entities, Lorr and Tylle became present, I was in great fear that the rest of the story would be an endless diatribe of patented Ray Bradbury verbiage. Going on and on and on about their histories, culture, battles, love life's, anger, hate, this, that, on and on and on...........
But thankfully that didn't happen.
Instead we got a fairly straightforward human interest story about Sale doing what he can to survive six days on this planetoid without any sleep. Not a bad read.
Too bad about the ending though. Poor Sale. Unfortunately, bitter irony is a classic tool in a storyteller's tool case.
September 13, 2025
Sales lands on a strange planet, turns out to a planetoid designated by a number. It seems very peaceful and they are telling from back home on Earth that it will only be six days before they can to him, but they are on the way. He doesn't think this is going to be any big deal. The planets seem fine, no animals or any threat.
However, when it gets dark and he starts going to sleep, he finds that he has some sort of companion. He can't see them, and only hear them when he is asleep. The sounds start with hisses and clicks and then gets more lke actual speech and more disturbing somehow at the same time. Finally, he realizes that the voices are the voices of two nation's leaders who were in a war against each other and are there, in spirit form, fighting over the planet. He is their vessal for continuing the fighting and the eviteabe end is likely to be his death.
The ship arrives to take home, and he is alive, but then the two resuers decide he needs sleep and give him some medicine to help him sleep and he fades away. They are left for a while and decide to rest before they leave.
This is a fun story for those who like science fiction with some horror thrown in.
However, when it gets dark and he starts going to sleep, he finds that he has some sort of companion. He can't see them, and only hear them when he is asleep. The sounds start with hisses and clicks and then gets more lke actual speech and more disturbing somehow at the same time. Finally, he realizes that the voices are the voices of two nation's leaders who were in a war against each other and are there, in spirit form, fighting over the planet. He is their vessal for continuing the fighting and the eviteabe end is likely to be his death.
The ship arrives to take home, and he is alive, but then the two resuers decide he needs sleep and give him some medicine to help him sleep and he fades away. They are left for a while and decide to rest before they leave.
This is a fun story for those who like science fiction with some horror thrown in.
April 8, 2025
How long can you stay awake?
Lately I’ve been binge listening to Ray Bradbury stories, for some reason I seem to have skipped reading them in my childhood. I guess it’s better later than never. In the case of Asleep in Armageddon it's not my favorite, but it is entertaining. I didn’t read the description for the story, so I had no idea of what to expect. To be honest I’m glad I had no preset expectations of what I would be hearing. It made the impact of the story much more dramatic.
Still after three days since I listened to the story, I’m sad for Leonard Sale. Everything he did to stay awake to avoid the madness. I guess Mr. Bradbury did an excellent job of imprinting the character on my psyche. Scott Miller did an excellent job of narrating this haunting story. He was able to make Sale’s situation and condition believable and realistic.
Lately I’ve been binge listening to Ray Bradbury stories, for some reason I seem to have skipped reading them in my childhood. I guess it’s better later than never. In the case of Asleep in Armageddon it's not my favorite, but it is entertaining. I didn’t read the description for the story, so I had no idea of what to expect. To be honest I’m glad I had no preset expectations of what I would be hearing. It made the impact of the story much more dramatic.
Still after three days since I listened to the story, I’m sad for Leonard Sale. Everything he did to stay awake to avoid the madness. I guess Mr. Bradbury did an excellent job of imprinting the character on my psyche. Scott Miller did an excellent job of narrating this haunting story. He was able to make Sale’s situation and condition believable and realistic.
June 8, 2025
Depending on how you read Ray Bradbury's Asleep in Armageddon (Kindle Edition) it is a passable classic period Sci Fi short story. 30 odd pages. But if it is possible that he anticipated or had some notion of PTSD. This via his friends and neighbors who served in WWII - He was rejected for service then this is an entirely different story.
A lone space pilot, crash lands his ship on a remote small uninhabited planet. His communications gear lasts long enough for him to send a rescue message and receive confirmation that he will be rescued before his supplies run out.
Life is good. Nothing to do but catch up on reading and catch up on sleep. But
Who knows what dreams may come? He has landed on a planet whose population had destroyed itself in unrelenting war. All that remains is unquenchable fighting spirits.
A lone space pilot, crash lands his ship on a remote small uninhabited planet. His communications gear lasts long enough for him to send a rescue message and receive confirmation that he will be rescued before his supplies run out.
Life is good. Nothing to do but catch up on reading and catch up on sleep. But
Who knows what dreams may come? He has landed on a planet whose population had destroyed itself in unrelenting war. All that remains is unquenchable fighting spirits.
January 3, 2026
i decided to read this short story as my first book of the year. it was thought-provoking, i’ll give it that.
i kind of understood what the author was going for with this. still, i decided to read some discussions online after the end of the story in order to see what other people gleaned from it.
after all of this, i think the point of this story is to emphasize the endless cycle of human violence, division, and war. we may not “see” the horrors going on in the world we live in because it’s “sunny” where we are, but that does not mean the horrors do not exist. this story was very on theme for the sad direction politics has taken in the united states recently.
i kind of understood what the author was going for with this. still, i decided to read some discussions online after the end of the story in order to see what other people gleaned from it.
after all of this, i think the point of this story is to emphasize the endless cycle of human violence, division, and war. we may not “see” the horrors going on in the world we live in because it’s “sunny” where we are, but that does not mean the horrors do not exist. this story was very on theme for the sad direction politics has taken in the united states recently.
December 5, 2024
jesus this was the wrong audiobook to listen to when unable to sleep.
the most ruinous words exchanged in armaggedon:
"more sedative?"
"more sedative."
the writing? insanely beautiful. haunting, in a way that you cannot tear yourself away from. whispers of haunting that insist on staying with them, on willing yourself to be haunted.
"a lovely world, until you shut your eyes and relax your mind, and the night and the voices and the insanity and the death padded in on soft feet."
need to reread fahrenheit 451 asap actually.
the most ruinous words exchanged in armaggedon:
"more sedative?"
"more sedative."
the writing? insanely beautiful. haunting, in a way that you cannot tear yourself away from. whispers of haunting that insist on staying with them, on willing yourself to be haunted.
"a lovely world, until you shut your eyes and relax your mind, and the night and the voices and the insanity and the death padded in on soft feet."
need to reread fahrenheit 451 asap actually.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 10, 2022
Avoid Planetoid 787... rockets and Space, another tale from the days of mystery. "Twitching fingers, a spasmed jaw, and jerking, He leaped up, raving. What was going on?" What will happen with our character, a man who loves to read? There are plenty of Eeeeeeeeeeeeees, Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhs, Mmmmmmmmmmmmms, and Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhs to keep you on your literary toes in this work. How long will Leonard Sale manage to stay awake, or will he?
September 8, 2023
I enjoyed this short story for the concept. I don't think I have ever read of a person's thoughts being invaded like this.
I must say that at the end,
Overall, this was a pretty good short read.
I must say that at the end,
Overall, this was a pretty good short read.
July 20, 2021
Its a Sci fi with a horror . And enjoyed reading it and at some point I felt weird . Just 21 pages super fast and quick .
I must read for Sci fi lovers and ending is thrilling
I must read for Sci fi lovers and ending is thrilling
July 23, 2022
A twilight zone tale told in efficient fashion.
October 15, 2023
Interesting nugget by Bradbury.
Reminds me of King.
Reminds me of King.
October 28, 2023
Interesting concept with Bradbury's typical masterful presentation.
April 29, 2024
It’s why your brain doesn’t exist viz. isn’t normally observable or it’d get infested.
February 8, 2025
We've all been there
April 24, 2025
Я би пробачила авторові навіть дивний сюжет цього оповідання, але точно не факт зашкалювання кількости згадок про "вайну і мір", бальзака, дастаєвскаго тощо.
Тож, очевидне і неймовірне хву...
Тож, очевидне і неймовірне хву...
July 15, 2025
What do you expect when you have crashed landed on an uninhabited plant and you hear voices in your sleep that threaten to kill you? Can you not sleep for six days until you are rescued? I love Bradbury's quirky tales.
November 19, 2025
very interesting exploration into consciousness and being in your own mind
November 26, 2025
Great story! I wish the ending was more definitive though.
January 18, 2026
Hated it. So tired of banal “literary” madness-core. It’s not interesting it’s just evil. Bye 👋🏻
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews