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Pillar of Fire
"Pillar of Fire" is classical space Sci-Fi short story written by the master of the genre, Ray Bradbury. "He came out of the earth, hating. Hate was his father; hate was his mother. It was good to walk again. It was good to leap up out of the earth, off of your back, and stretch your cramped arms violently and try to take a deep breath! He tried. He cried out."
48 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 16, 2021
17 people are currently reading
64 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
July 1, 2022
Weird POV story about our bleak future as clean, truthful, crime-free, fearless humanity. A Tribute to horror authors and Death itself.
December 27, 2021
⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
Plot: William Lantry awakens hundreds of years after his death when his body is one of many removed from a cemetery for disposal. William is at first confused by this new world, with it's strong moral code, and lack of violence and lying; then, a burning rage lights inside of him and he decides that all of these futuristic people do not deserve to live...
Genre: Science fiction, supernatural.
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Thoughts While Reading:
Thoughts at 100%:
1. This was an unusual story, but an interesting one. I was rooting for Lantry, but also happy when his reign of destruction was put to a stop. I don't want to give too much away, but for a short sci-fi novella, this ticked all the boxes, and had a clear beginning, middle, and end (so many novellas don't seem to which drives me insane).
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Conclusion and Recommendation:
I'm giving this 3.5 stars rounded down to 3. This might not sound like a good rating, but I don't give novellas as high ratings as full length novels just due to the fact that they can't have as much anything (character development, plot, etc. etc.). Still, this is worth a listen even just for the thought provoking nature of the story.
Plot: William Lantry awakens hundreds of years after his death when his body is one of many removed from a cemetery for disposal. William is at first confused by this new world, with it's strong moral code, and lack of violence and lying; then, a burning rage lights inside of him and he decides that all of these futuristic people do not deserve to live...
Genre: Science fiction, supernatural.
----------
Thoughts While Reading:
Thoughts at 100%:
1. This was an unusual story, but an interesting one. I was rooting for Lantry, but also happy when his reign of destruction was put to a stop. I don't want to give too much away, but for a short sci-fi novella, this ticked all the boxes, and had a clear beginning, middle, and end (so many novellas don't seem to which drives me insane).
----------
Conclusion and Recommendation:
I'm giving this 3.5 stars rounded down to 3. This might not sound like a good rating, but I don't give novellas as high ratings as full length novels just due to the fact that they can't have as much anything (character development, plot, etc. etc.). Still, this is worth a listen even just for the thought provoking nature of the story.
February 19, 2022
I was kinda “meh” on how the story played out. It was paced well, and the premise was interesting. But the main character was thoroughly one dimensional. I disliked him and felt he was unredeemable.
The audiobook was formatted well with no issues in sound quality. The narrator did a good job.
The audiobook was formatted well with no issues in sound quality. The narrator did a good job.
September 18, 2021
He came out of the earth hating.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 9, 2025
O.K. I know I bitch alot about Ray Bradbury's excessive verbiage, of which there is a shit-ton-boat-load of at the end of this story. It really does take a long, long, looong time for the story to end, after the narrative is over. Ray Bradbury obviously suffers from "payed-by-the-word-count" flatuance.
That being said, this story gets 4 stars just because the idea is so wierd, it shouldn't work. But somehow it does work.
The idea of a dead man, coming back to "animation", to wreck havoc on a world that is incinerating the last corpses left on the Earth is......well....a strange idea.
And so Wiil Lantry thus sets forth, declaring war on the entire Planet Earth, leaving destroyed incinerators in his wake.
Part of me wonders if, since this was published after WWII ended, if there was some sort of comment on The Holocaust going on in the back of Ray Bradbury's mind.
Anyways, the first half of the story is pretty good. Landry has to deal with a world full of polite, helpful people who no nothing of violence, lying, killing or even fear. This makes his spree of destruction so much easier, since no one has any idea of what is going on. Such mayhem is totally foreign and unimaginable to them.
It sounds alot like the plot for the 1993 movie Demolition Man staring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes.
Then the second half gets bogged down by no plot development. The only thing that happens is that Will Lantry gets outed by some scientist-guy, who logics out his secret.
And here, endless verbiage abounds. And abounds. And abounds abounds and abounds. One just wishes RB would get on with it and stop writing words. End the story already! Please! A
Ah well. It's the sort of thing that made Ray Bradbury fall off my must read lust.
Still though, it's kind of a cool plot idea for a wierd story.
That being said, this story gets 4 stars just because the idea is so wierd, it shouldn't work. But somehow it does work.
The idea of a dead man, coming back to "animation", to wreck havoc on a world that is incinerating the last corpses left on the Earth is......well....a strange idea.
And so Wiil Lantry thus sets forth, declaring war on the entire Planet Earth, leaving destroyed incinerators in his wake.
Part of me wonders if, since this was published after WWII ended, if there was some sort of comment on The Holocaust going on in the back of Ray Bradbury's mind.
Anyways, the first half of the story is pretty good. Landry has to deal with a world full of polite, helpful people who no nothing of violence, lying, killing or even fear. This makes his spree of destruction so much easier, since no one has any idea of what is going on. Such mayhem is totally foreign and unimaginable to them.
It sounds alot like the plot for the 1993 movie Demolition Man staring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes.
Then the second half gets bogged down by no plot development. The only thing that happens is that Will Lantry gets outed by some scientist-guy, who logics out his secret.
And here, endless verbiage abounds. And abounds. And abounds abounds and abounds. One just wishes RB would get on with it and stop writing words. End the story already! Please! A
Ah well. It's the sort of thing that made Ray Bradbury fall off my must read lust.
Still though, it's kind of a cool plot idea for a wierd story.
January 2, 2025
What really makes a man?
What makes us live?
Bradbury (and his vociferous defense of The Dark) snags me once again with his unique perspective that I've kind of forgotten in the many years since I last picked up some of his work.
He once again makes the point (in this novella) that it's not our logic or our love or accomplishments that makes us human. It is our fears, our hates, our superstitions and transgressions that make us alive.
The murderous dead guy in the story is more alive (in Bradbury's world) than the robotic motions of the modern society in which he now finds himself, honed to complete efficiency and bereft of murder, lies, dirt, sin; people no longer have to fear the dark because they know there's nothing there (an interesting point that maybe it's only BELIEF that makes things real to us - belief as the only way to true life....)
Death brings nothing to these new people because they truly believe there's nothing else. No religion, superstition, vampires, monsters. No Poe, no Lovecraft or any of the others.
People die and are disposed of (creamation) in the most efficient way possible, because there's no reason to hang on to their remains - no hope of anything happening to them; the dead just taking space away from the living. Which is what eventually happens to the last living dead guy (or dead, living guy) on earth, leaving us to reflect on the tragedy of that loss as the new sanitized version of earth continues into the future.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 20, 2025
A five star concept. The protagonist is a dead man who comes alive hundreds of years into the future. It is a future that has no crime, violence, no dishonesty, and people when they died are burned quickly and without ceremony. Oddly, they have also dug up all dead people and burned them too. One cemetery was left as a tourist destination but now that one is to be destroyed. On the night before he is to be dug up and consumed the protagonist who has lain awake and absorbed all knowledge of this future arises and goes on a killing spree so he won't be alone.
Since everyone assumes that all are honest and crime not possible he easily gets away with it until one man uses logic to figure out the truth and burns the man.
The writing - particularly the first few pages is Bradbury at his finest.
The flaw in the story is my confusion as to what Bradbury's intent was. On the one hand, his protagonist "came out of the earth hating. Hate was his father, hate was his mother." Then, he murders people. But on the other hand as he is sent to be burned he is crying out that he is Edgar Allen Poe and other authors that Bradbury loves - authors whose books were burned in this future. So, does Bradbury stand with this future he has created with its lack of crime or does it lament it as soulless because it has lost touch with its past?
Since everyone assumes that all are honest and crime not possible he easily gets away with it until one man uses logic to figure out the truth and burns the man.
The writing - particularly the first few pages is Bradbury at his finest.
The flaw in the story is my confusion as to what Bradbury's intent was. On the one hand, his protagonist "came out of the earth hating. Hate was his father, hate was his mother." Then, he murders people. But on the other hand as he is sent to be burned he is crying out that he is Edgar Allen Poe and other authors that Bradbury loves - authors whose books were burned in this future. So, does Bradbury stand with this future he has created with its lack of crime or does it lament it as soulless because it has lost touch with its past?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 8, 2023
A short story that was in a magazine once in 1948 has some elements of his Fahrenheit 451 novel a little later on.
As I grow and read more books than I ever thought I would, I found a deeper love of literature that reference other works. Not only does it tell me what was known at the time but tells me a bit more of the times itself and I can find the difference and see who made it to my time.
I heard the names of Edgar Allan Poe and Lovecraft -who I have read works by, and know a bit about them. But then I hear names like Ambrose Bierce, Machen, Derleth, and I suspect Clement Freud and look them up and see their works to hopefully read.
Along with phliosopbers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Who I also never heard of and had to Google them learning more about those subjects as well.
As a short read I learned more of the times and the author's references then I expected.
The story itself is well written and I plan on reading it again at some point. We find a man brought to life hundreds of years later when we are finally at an Utopia of sort. He deals with anger and rage from previous generations of his past and the earth and like all lost souls, he is looking for something lost to him.
As I grow and read more books than I ever thought I would, I found a deeper love of literature that reference other works. Not only does it tell me what was known at the time but tells me a bit more of the times itself and I can find the difference and see who made it to my time.
I heard the names of Edgar Allan Poe and Lovecraft -who I have read works by, and know a bit about them. But then I hear names like Ambrose Bierce, Machen, Derleth, and I suspect Clement Freud and look them up and see their works to hopefully read.
Along with phliosopbers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Who I also never heard of and had to Google them learning more about those subjects as well.
As a short read I learned more of the times and the author's references then I expected.
The story itself is well written and I plan on reading it again at some point. We find a man brought to life hundreds of years later when we are finally at an Utopia of sort. He deals with anger and rage from previous generations of his past and the earth and like all lost souls, he is looking for something lost to him.
May 10, 2022
This tale opens with: 'We cannot tell you what kind of a story this is. We simply cannot present it as we present other stories. It is too tremendous for that.' And soon leaves the reader with a clue: 'He came out of the earth, hating. Hate was his father; hate was his mother... He touched the tombstone over his own empty grave. He knew his own name again.' But where will this story go, and where will it end? William Lantry, over 400 years in his grave! Who, or what, is he?
The world William Lantry awakens to is far different than the one he left for his four-century-plus underground condominium.
A short read so isn't it is a good time for you to begin?
The world William Lantry awakens to is far different than the one he left for his four-century-plus underground condominium.
A short read so isn't it is a good time for you to begin?
April 8, 2025
Strange tale about the future.
Pillar of Fire proves that Ray Bradbury can take any situation and turn it into an entertaining story. In this case the story not only puts you on edge, but it also gives you pause to wonder if there might be huge crematoriums in the not-so-distant future. This story isn’t my favorite of Mr. Bradbury’s by far, but it did a decent job keeping me engaged as well as engaging my mind long after it ended wondering how feasible his future world could be. B.J. Harrison does an excellent job narrating the story.
Pillar of Fire proves that Ray Bradbury can take any situation and turn it into an entertaining story. In this case the story not only puts you on edge, but it also gives you pause to wonder if there might be huge crematoriums in the not-so-distant future. This story isn’t my favorite of Mr. Bradbury’s by far, but it did a decent job keeping me engaged as well as engaging my mind long after it ended wondering how feasible his future world could be. B.J. Harrison does an excellent job narrating the story.
October 29, 2021
A seasonally appropriate read for Halloween weekend! It showcased some of the finer aspects of Bradbury's future works, firefighters, books, Mars, the loss of knowledge, and the eradication of hatred.
September 7, 2025
Fantastic novella set in a future that denies death and fear, a dead man awakens seeking to understand life and the absence of it. A thematically dense short novel with delightfully lyrical prose inspires emotions and insists you define what’s worth living for.
April 8, 2022
This made me think of some issues of Sandman with similar themes.
June 4, 2022
Second time to read this and I am stunned by the job Bradbury did.
July 18, 2022
Quick short story with an interesting concept.
July 25, 2022
Great short story, very creative. I've never read anything like it.
September 20, 2022
i loved this, now i have to read everything by this man
December 7, 2023
It was strange. The ending left me with many thoughts about which I am still thinking.
February 16, 2024
How will William Lantry live in a world where no one knows him? For he was born 350 years ago, and he just got out of his grave. Listened to on The Classic Tales Podcast.
May 14, 2024
I love this concept.
May 22, 2024
First, you burn the books, then you burn the people who’ve written books, then you burn the people who’ve read books, then you have California.
August 29, 2024
A bizarre, weird, thought provoking tale (novella).
March 29, 2025
Creepy, but interesting.
July 10, 2025
[4.5 stars]
December 1, 2025
3.5 ⭐️ bizarre thought provoking novella.
December 23, 2025
im putting together a team, William Lantry and AM.
June 21, 2023
it's a good book
November 16, 2022
What a delightfully macabre story! Bradbury manages to channel Lovecraft and Poe all the while making the story very much a Bradbury masterpiece. The concept was original , the imagery was wonderful and the pace was perfect. I don’t know how I’ve managed to not have read this before. As the story moved along I feared that the ending would disappoint ( the only disappointment was that it ended) but it did not disappoint It will be a Halloween tradition for me from now on.
March 23, 2021
This story was exciting and thrilling. I'd give 5 stars if this app would let me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews