The Pendulum

by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury's first professional publication in 1941 (the story "Pendulum", co-authored with Henry Hasse).

Prisoner of Time was he, outlawed from Life and Death alike the strange,brooding creature who watched the ages roll by and waited half fearfully for--eternity?

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Horror, Fantasy, Classics

Audiobook

First published November 1, 1941

About the author

Ray 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".

Reviews

[Leon]

nah

[Jamie]

Kind of an eerie, horror/SF time travel story. Very good!

[Dakota]

This short story is everything that Ray Bradbury is to me. The feeling of dread and wonder is so immense. It’s amazing! Read it if you can, it’s short and so worth your time.

[amber]

?

[Paul Bradley]

A apocalyptic vision delivered through nesting devices; the arrival on Earth of aliens investigating the demise of the human race, and their discovery of the writings of a wrongfully convicted scientist who had been imprisoned in the eponymous pendulum and accidentally imbued with immense longevity with which he is able to bear witness to the robot uprising and eventual destruction.
A lot to squeeze into nine pages, and the story does not linger.

[Katarina Hatch]

read this in the library while i should’ve been writing a percussion concert review essay 😀😀😀

[Zen]

Great story. The prose are poetic. The Theme is Mystical. The Tone is Haunting and Mysterious.

All the kind of Stuff I like in Good Literature.

Ray Bradbury's ususal Execessive Verbalage is kept in check and just Peeks Out Now and Again to set the Uncanny Feel of the Piece.

"Up and Down. Up and Down. The Prisoner of Time. Sat inside His Glass Pendulum. Swinging Back and Forth. Up and Down. Up and Down."

This is One that sticks with you in the Back of Your Mind. As Time Slowly Passes. On and On.

Recommended Read.

[mabuse cast]

Hot take but I found this early Ray Bradbury story,which is clearly inspired by the famous Poe story "the pit and the pendulum", to be a better written story then the Poe one! I still like Poe don't get me wrong but this story by Ray Bradbury for as short as it is packs a punch and has a really cool spin on "the pit and the pendulum"!

One of those short stories that is so simple, yet so well done, that you feel dumb for not having come up with it!

[Rhys Causon]

For me, Bradbury has been hit or miss to read.

So this was an interesting read, giving an quick run down of the premise, an inventor creates a Time Machine but something goes wrong and he ends punished in a rather unique way.

It then answers every question I had about the punishment so I couldn’t say it wasn’t thought through.

[Gr1972]

4 out of 5

[Angélica]

dust podcast by gunpowder & sky.
season one: horizons | entry two.

[Scott]

Goddamn great.

[Carol]

I couldn’t have asked for a better story. Short, strong, and with an ending that smacks you in the face, it was perfection.

[Andrew Alvis]

Bradbury did not waste a single page or word, powerful stuff.

[cassie agustin]

Interfering with the fundamental building blocks of the universe raises moral and ethical consequences despite good intentions.

[Shanti]

I like Bradbury but this was a bit banal

[Tony Ciak]

Scifi,short story, by masters, well done!!!

[Suha1l]

Could have been better

[Kristina]

I don’t know. I don’t think it’s the masterpiece everyone else seems to think it is. When I found out it was his first published work, that made sense to me, but the reviews are stellar, so maybe I’m missing something. Or it could just be that I’m not a gigantic fan of 1950s science fiction. I’ll probably read a few more of Bradbury’s short stories before I decide I’m not a fan, though.

[Sam Russell]

An interesting and unique concept. A utopian setting with a dystopian inciting incident. Bradbury’s writing is of its time, and while there is limited character development, the world building accomplished in such a short tale is impressive.

[Liz]

This good, very short story was published in 1941 and was Bradbury's first published piece, co-authored with Henry Hasse. A short and to the point sci-fi story about the nature of punishment. Available in HorrorBabble's Ultimate Weird Tales Collection, Volume 1, narrated by Ian Gordon.
3.5 stars

[Emanuella]

Случайно попаднах на този разказ и си го представих на късометражен филм. Добър е!

[Sheila Lambert]

Still don't know what to think of this one fully. It's a quality story though.
Podcast edition from Dust: Gunpowder and Sky Episode 3.

[Elias Carlson]

The story seems sad as well as scary. I liked it quite a lot