The Fog Horn
by Ray Bradbury
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A prehistoric reptilian monster seeking another of its own kind rises from the sea when it hears a bellowing fog horn calling to it.Tags
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A pair of lighthouse keepers find that the fog horn of their lighthouse attracts a sea monster - they call it a dinosaur, but from the descriptions it more resembles a plesiosaur.
In structure it's a horror story, but the tone is elegiac, filled with awed compassion for the monster which takes the sound of the fog horn for the call of a conspecific. It's very good.
In structure it's a horror story, but the tone is elegiac, filled with awed compassion for the monster which takes the sound of the fog horn for the call of a conspecific. It's very good.
A wonderful short story by Bradbury: creepy and memorable. The descriptions of the fog and the dark ocean create a vivid setting, and the drama pays off nicely. Ten years after I read it, I could still recall it in detail. Recommended for fans of science fiction or of tales about the sea.
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945+ Works 169,148 Members
Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois on August 22, 1920. At the age of fifteen, he started submitting short stories to national magazines. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 600 stories, poems, essays, plays, films, television plays, radio, music, and comic books. His books include The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, The show more Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Bradbury Speaks. He won numerous awards for his works including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1977, 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. He wrote the screen play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted 65 of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. The film The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit was written by Ray Bradbury and was based on his story The Magic White Suit. He was the idea consultant and wrote the basic scenario for the United States pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair, as well as being an imagineer for Walt Disney Enterprises, where he designed the Spaceship Earth exhibition at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center. He died after a long illness on June 5, 2012 at the age of 91. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Is contained in
Fahrenheit 451 - The Illustrated Man - Dandelion Wine - The Golden Apples of the Sun & the Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (indirect)
Bradbury Classic Stories 1: From the Golden Apples of the Sun and R Is for Rocket (Grand Master Editions) by Ray Bradbury (indirect)
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1951-06-23
- First words
- Out there in the cold water, far from land, we waited every night for the coming of the fog, and it came, and we oiled the brass machinery and lit the fog light up in the stone tower.
- Quotations
- "Oh, the sea's full." McDunn puffed his pipe nervously, blinking. He had been nervous all day and hadn't said why. "For all our engines and so-called submarines, it'll be ten thousand centuries before we set foot on the real ... (show all)bottom of the sunken lands, in the fairy kingdoms there, and know real terror. Think of it, it's still the year 300,000 Before Christ down under there. While we've paraded around with trumpets, lopping off each other's countries and heads, they have been living beneath the sea twelve miles deep and cold in a time as old as the beard of a comet."
I saw it all, I knew it all - the million years of waiting alone, for someone to come back who never came back. The million years of isolation at the bottom of the sea, the insanity of time there, while the skies cleared of r... (show all)eptile-birds, the swamps dried on the continental lands, the sloths and saber-tooths had their day and sank in tar pits, and men ran like white ants upon the hills.
"That's life for you," said McDunn. "Someone always waiting for someone who never comes home. Always someone loving some thing more than that thing loves them. And after a while you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so ... (show all)it can't hurt you no more." - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I sat there wishing there was something I could say.
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- English
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