Project Gutenberg 2021-03-02 Public domain in the USA. 368 Bradbury, Ray 1920 2012 Elliott, William Bradbury, Raymond Douglas Sterling, Brett Donel Pillar of Fire Produced from Planet Stories Summer 1948 Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net "Pillar of Fire" by Ray Bradbury is a science fiction novella written in the mid-20th century. This thought-provoking work delves into themes of death, resurrection, and the human condition, exploring what it means to be both alive and dead in a technologically advanced but emotionally barren future. The narrative follows William Lantry, a dead man who rises to find himself in a world that no longer acknowledges death, where corpses are incinerated rather than buried, and the very notion of being dead is considered archaic. The story is propelled by William Lantry’s grotesque awakening as the last known dead man in a society that has eradicated the existence of the dead. Filled with resentment and a burning need for connection, Lantry grapples with his existence in this antiseptic future, where death is treated as an embarrassing inconvenience. As he navigates the brightly-lit world and its inhabitants, he clings to his hatred, which fuels his desire to create companions from the dead. Confronted with the absurdity of his reality, Lantry's journey becomes a desperate attempt to reclaim the concept of death and make others recognize it. Ultimately, however, he learns that the dead do not conform to his fantasies—nobody in this reality believes in the resurrection he longs for, leaving him isolated in a world that refuses to acknowledge his plight. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 87.0 (6th grade). Easy to read. en Science fiction Horror tales Murderers -- Fiction PS Text Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy Category: Novels Category: American Literature 108139 2025-07-25T13:09:59.632830 text/html 83892 2024-12-12T07:06:21 text/html 401297 2025-07-25T13:10:02.067880 application/epub+zip 401605 2025-07-25T13:10:00.127779 application/epub+zip 106247 2025-07-25T13:09:59.843821 application/epub+zip 452595 2025-07-25T13:10:03.733842 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 443532 2025-07-25T13:10:01.828764 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 148232 2022-09-29T06:32:41.148699 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 98123 2025-07-25T13:09:59.374798 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 78334 2024-12-12T07:06:21 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 17420 2025-07-25T13:10:03.861819 application/rdf+xml 31570 2025-07-25T13:09:59.955836 image/jpeg 5242 2025-07-25T13:09:59.896822 image/jpeg 545359 2025-07-25T13:09:59.650794 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia