Tony's Review of A Sound of Thunder

A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury starts with an offer that is hard to resist: travel into the past and hunt a dinosaur. Eckels pays for the trip, but there is one rule he cannot break. He must stay on the path. Even a small change to the past could alter the future. What would latter be known as the butterfly effect.

Some of the dinosaur science shows its age, and Bradbury’s descriptions get a little thick when the animal arrives. The tension still works for me. He takes the idea that one small change can have enormous consequences, and makes it frightening instead of just interesting. While the story itself opens a plot hole here. You can get past it.

The ending is sharp. The dinosaur may be the biggest thing in the story, but Eckels’s smallest mistake is what stays with you.