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Thu, July 7, 2005

"A Sound of Thunder" - free reads!—2:27 PM

Andy mentioned today that Warner Brothers is releasing a movie based on Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder". I haven't read the story, but most of us are familiar with its general theme because The Simpsons spoofed it in the "Time and Punishment" segment of their 1994 Halloween episode, "Treehouse of Horror V". Homer goes back in time with a magic toaster, and returns to see that seemingly minor changes in the distant past have created various drastic effects in his present.

The trailer seems interesting although the film necessarily departs from Bradbury's story. (Andy also noted that the film has more writers than can fit in one billing block, which is generally a red flag.) Regardless, the idea of the story is a fascinating analysis of the paradoxes of time travel – a subject always near and dear to my heart.

As luck would have it, Wikipedia links to a copy of the story online. Since I'll be traveling this weekend, I thought it might make dandy plane reading. It simply wouldn't do to just print out the web page version (this is me, after all), so I laid it out with proper type and margins in InDesign, then crafted it into a booklet that I could carry with me. It turned out pretty nicely, so I decided to share it with you in case you want to read it.

I have no idea why the full text of this story is freely available online. As far as I can tell, it's still protected by copyright. However, if Dr. Snavely can do it, I assume I can as well. We'll try it at least until some crazy lawyers tell me to take it down.

A Sound of Thunder [61k PDF]

If you want the booklet like I made, try this one instead. (Print the first five pages on the back of the last five, fold, and staple.)

A Sound of Thunder (booklet) [61k PDF]

By the way, if anyone has any tips on how to get InDesign to output a booklet like this, please do pass them along. The method I've always used is to get a page count, dummy up a mock booklet, and work out which pages should be printed on the back of which by hand. Then I just rearrange them in InDesign and print. I'm sure there's an easier way – I just don't do this often enough to know what it is.

29 Comments (Add your comments)

"Julian" — Tue, 9/6/05 4:19pm

Thanks for the full text of A Sound of Thunder - been lookin' for that!

"john" — Mon, 9/12/05 9:41pm

the link seems to not exist any more. can someone please email me a copy of the full text of a sound of thunder. my email is john3690@hotmail.com

""trinket"" — Sun, 4/9/06 5:36pm

This is such a great site! Thank you :o)

"Clunie" — Thu, 4/13/06 5:08pm

Thankyou so much for this, been looking for this for ages:)

Anonymous Coward — Tue, 5/2/06 7:44pm

thanx this is a good book

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 6/28/06 10:37am

It was a nice pdf, story has anyone got a vhs copy of the original tv show the raybradbury theatre A sound of thunder, i think 1985 , had a copy on vhs ages ago but lost it, It had the hunter guy from jurasic park in it, i remember it was very good. So if anyone has a copy of it leave me your email addy cheers bob

"scott" — Wed, 9/13/06 8:32pm

great story i really liked it

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 9/27/06 12:33pm

First time reading this was in 8th grade (1984) for discussion. Couldn't remember title, etc., so Googled safari, time travel, dinosaur, etc. Great effort & much appreciated.

Anonymous Coward — Sun, 10/1/06 8:12pm

awesome

Anonymous Coward — Thu, 10/5/06 3:58pm

thanks~

Anonymous Coward — Sun, 10/29/06 6:02pm

fuk this fuken lame shit

Anonymous Coward — Thu, 11/2/06 6:46pm

Very good! Great example of the butterfly affect and great moral/theme – that the small things we do now can affect the future massively.

"Im an anonymous coward" — Wed, 11/22/06 10:45pm

I love this story, and the cheap movie made everywhere else take down the file, so thanks

"Lisa" — Wed, 11/29/06 5:06pm

Dude! Thanks a LOT for the copy of the story. I wanted to use it in teaching and couldn't find it. You've helped out 23 students today!! Thanks! :)

Bee Boy — Thu, 11/30/06 9:51am

a) No, it is you who is helping those students. They're our future, and you're in the trenches giving them a better life. Thank you!

b) A class size of 23! That's certainly encouraging to hear. I suppose it could always be better, but considering in some schools that number approaches 40, I'm very glad you're working with a better ratio (or a massive truancy problem – not as good).

c) I would've given anything for a teacher who started a sentence with "Dude!"

Anonymous Coward — Tue, 12/5/06 9:56am

good

Anonymous Coward — Mon, 12/25/06 5:53pm

this site is great thanks, i needed a copy of that, great story, encouraged me to go buy his book on more short stories, thanks again

Anonymous Coward — Sun, 12/31/06 11:37pm

Thanks for providing this! I am planning on using it in my 8th grade Science classes as an interdisciplinary project with 8th grade English classes.

"Tai Lee" — Tue, 1/9/07 11:53pm

i've tried to see the story, and it's not coming up, what am I doing wrong?

"dayi" — Tue, 1/23/07 8:09am

i tryed every site i now and nothing

Anonymous Coward — Thu, 2/8/07 12:43am

"Design Diva" Thrilled to find this, it isone of my all time favourites"

Anonymous Coward — Thu, 3/8/07 3:59pm

wuts going on?

Anonymous Coward — Sun, 6/3/07 12:26am

Em... Where's the italicised words? I thought the original had them....

"Chad" — Wed, 9/19/07 5:53pm

Thanks for this. I first read A Sound of Thunder while in college when it was reprinted in Penthouse magazine. Who says guys dont read the articles, anyway, I have been a Bradbury fan eversince and have been looking for this all over the web. Thanks again.

"Putzay" — Mon, 10/22/07 8:54pm

I hate my teacher!!! she is making me do al this fuckin workkk....fuck mrs.pusztay!!!!!

"xkookiemonstar" — Wed, 1/30/08 12:53am

Thanks for the story!! It will help me greatly in my assignment =]

"Tom" — Fri, 2/8/08 1:51am

oh my god, it's a great story but very boring to learn about in school. i can't find a copy anywhere and i have to do an essay on this story for tomorrow!

"war" — Mon, 2/25/08 11:23pm

oh come on, I want a whole story cause I will do a school project. Do you have?this is not a kind of story ive been looking for..

"Patch" — Mon, 4/14/08 9:56am

Another 8th grade teacher giving thanks for the site. I read this over 15 years ago when I was in school and remembered enjoying it– trying to pass it along to the next generation. Going to use it with "The Murderer," although I've forgotten the author. Thanks!

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