6 ms·

There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

165 points by wallflower 8mo ago

aebtebeten 8mo ago
the soviet cartoon version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LNHYz89sNc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LNHYz89sNc
- gsf_emergency_6 8mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(poem)#:~:text=Flame%20and%20Shadow%20fell,her%20to%20criminal%20prosecution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(po... Almost politically incorrect woke? Another Bradbury adaptation https://youtu.be/02FgildTKMs https://youtu.be/02FgildTKMs (Here there be Tygers)
- lilytweed 8mo ago
  The first thing I thought of. Beautiful version.
- pixl97 8mo ago
  Did the wall clock say 2027? There still time for our in house robots then.
- culebron21 8mo ago
  The English description says "Russia, 1987". This is incorrect. It's 1984 (before the Perestroyka polity), Uzbekfilm studio in Tashkent (now Uzbekistan). Interestingly, the crew surnames are some Uzbek, some Russian, some Korean (Tsoi) and even one German last name.
  - gsf_emergency_6 8mo ago
    Alexander Rozendorn (famous dude), probably not a Baltic German? Lagniappe: https://archive.ph/2026.02.07-024423/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/6/what-barak-epstein-audio-says-about-israeli-controlling-demographics#:~:text=Americans%20and%20the%20French%20are%20especially%20welcome%2C https://archive.ph/2026.02.07-024423/https://www.aljazeera.c...
    - aebtebeten 8mo ago
      Overheard: "an אנגלו-סקסונית is someone with really weird ideas about religion" Does 2022 count? Looks like VVP sent some of his best; not only ABP but also MAG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leiz5L-B6Vo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leiz5L-B6Vo EDIT: a Dorn, that can be part of a Baum, but otherwise I'm not getting many hits for А?Р. ЭРР?
      - gsf_emergency_6 8mo ago
        Ah egregious kernel-bug that I haven't fixed yet :( Looks like inner sharpbigot/schizo indeed got confused with E? maybe not quickly fixable, so I'd better find a win-win way to leverage it ;)? I know a person who published(!, but easier to check) citation-bugs of this variety (not defending this, just pointing out a possible WASP-slav superposition condition :) "Orthogonally", PH might have (linked)some answers to your presumed queries https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46940953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46940953 Hilarious YouTube comment: the image you inspired of collecting nickels* in front of cultural steamrollers is beginning to look like GOAT (*Well-bred dogs as "nicklers of men"?)
      - gsf_emergency_6 8mo ago
        (After a long day of unsuccessfully riding herd on an "smart undergrad" LLM coder..) My slightly exasperated inner bigot hunches that there's something to learn from the antiparallel failures by which OpenAI tried to assimilate 官 into 商 VS how the local polity has been trying to distill 官 from 商(-adjacent, so a form of "nickling"?) https://xcancel.com/techemails/status/2018034985563996291 https://xcancel.com/techemails/status/2018034985563996291 https://www.techemails.com/p/the-fate-of-civilization-is-at-stake https://www.techemails.com/p/the-fate-of-civilization-is-at-...
chikinpotpi 8mo ago
how dare you make my feel my own feelings
sonofhans 8mo ago
I’ll always upvote Bradbury; what a master. Isaac Asimov used to talk about “the big 3” of science fiction of his era: himself (natch), Arthur C Clarke, and Ray Bradbury. The more I read of all those cats, and boy have I read them, I came to see that Asimov was wrong, and that Bradbury was a different and better writer altogether. Bradbury’s stories are about people, deeply real and deeply feeling people. This thread is young and already comments are about how Bradbury made folks feel. He was a humanist, like Ursula LeGuin, and less interested in exactly how the ray guns worked. Frank Herbert seems like this to me as well, very humane, opposite of Greg Bear and Kim Stanley Robinson and (later stage) Neal Stephenson. If you love Bradbury then take a look at Ian McDonald. When I read “Rainmaker Cometh” for the first time I had to do a double-take, so sure I was that it was a new Bradbury story.
- mrec 8mo ago
  > take a look at Ian McDonald +1. I loved Desolation Road in particular; a sort of 100 Years of Solitude but on Mars and with more than 2 names for its 3000 characters.
  - sonofhans 8mo ago
    Yes, that is one of my very favorite books. My life is measured in part by how often I allow myself to read it.
  - dyeje 8mo ago
    That book is so painful to read because of that lol.
  - munificent 8mo ago
    > more than 2 names for its 3000 characters. God, thank you for this. Everyone seems to love that book and I found it hopelessly confusing and pointless.
- srean 8mo ago
  Thank you for suggesting Ian Mcdonald, have not read any of his. I absolutely rever and adore Bradbury, probably because he has a knack of articulating so well, the emotions and esthetics that we have in common, that I leave unarticulated, more so now that I am no longer a teenager.
focusedone 8mo ago
wow
kickofline 8mo ago
I read this in high school English class. It remains one of my favorites.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
FpUser 8mo ago
Soviet cartoon (1984) based on the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quyaaszg6jc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quyaaszg6jc
linkjuice4all 8mo ago
Worth noting - the original WW1 poem written by Sara Teasdale with the same name that may have inspired Bradbury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(poem) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(po...
- raptorraver 8mo ago
  I made a composition for string orchestra and male voice from that poem 10 years ago. It's a very powerful poem. https://soundcloud.com/henrisokka/there-will-come-soft-rains https://soundcloud.com/henrisokka/there-will-come-soft-rains
- Sharlin 8mo ago
  The poem explicitly features in the story, so I'd say it's pretty guaranteed to have inspired Bradbury ;) --- The SSAATTBB setting of Teasdale's words by Latvian contemporary choral composer Ēriks Ešenvalds is fittingly powerful and a guaranteed source of chills: https://youtu.be/qwSSVDgY-Sw https://youtu.be/qwSSVDgY-Sw The choir I sing in performed the piece for the first time in spring 2022, and against the backdrop of the pandemic and Russia's invasion the words felt incredibly topical and poignant. We're performing it again this spring. While we're at it, a couple of other ethereally beautiful Ešenvalds settings of Teasdale's texts: Only in Sleep – https://youtu.be/fvPynMI6Umc https://youtu.be/fvPynMI6Umc (for choir and a soprano soloist) Stars – https://youtu.be/SK2Rd3qgIGE https://youtu.be/SK2Rd3qgIGE (for choir and tuned wine glasses!)
  - KnuthIsGod 8mo ago
    Beautiful. Sending the link to my Latvian relatives.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
soulofmischief 8mo ago
I upvote anything Bradbury or Teasdale. For anyone interested, here's a short game I made in 2 days for Ludum Dare back in 2019, which was inspired by the original poem and Bradbury's short story. I didn't have enough time to balance the gameplay and add more scenarios, but it's a neat experience and contains one of my favorite personal musical compositions. https://badsoft.co/games/soft-rains/ https://badsoft.co/games/soft-rains/
scarmig 8mo ago
I read this recently and wanted to post it on August 4. You jumped the gun!
nicbou 8mo ago
Text version: https://short-stories.co/@raybradbury/there-will-come-soft-rains-6k8vr4xxlnmj https://short-stories.co/@raybradbury/there-will-come-soft-r...
a_shovel 8mo ago
The paragraph about the stove making dozens of breakfasts as the house collapses at the climax of the story is what always stuck with me most. It would take a better writer than me to say why it works so well, I just know it does.
- greenbit 8mo ago
  What do you do with an impossible situation? You do what you can. This maniacal robot stove somehow evokes a sense of desperation we can instinctively empathize with. A fiction of an intelligent machine, facing doom, deserving of pity. Or at least I like that idea better than just some mundane physical explanation.
- munificent 8mo ago
  > It would take a better writer than me to say why it works so well, I just know it does. One way to look at fiction is that it's a way to express an idea indirectly that defies explanation in literal non-fiction terms. There are non-verbal thoughts and feelings we can all understand, but can't seem to put them into words in order to transmit from one brain to another without having to go indirectly through a metaphor or allegory.
MengerSponge 8mo ago
Selected Shorts had an episode where Kathleen Chalfant read this! https://www.symphonyspace.org/selected-shorts/episodes/uncanny https://www.symphonyspace.org/selected-shorts/episodes/uncan... I can't find the episode after a quick search... I wish there were an archive of their past episodes, but I imagine someone would have to pay extra to the performers for that right.
shmerl 8mo ago
Poor dog. Depressive story from The Martian Chronicles with very futuristic smart home depiction. Not unusually dark for Bradbury though.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
kazinator 8mo ago
The moment in time described in the story cannot be very long after the implied nuclear explosion, because surely the house cannot have more than a couple weeks' worth of bacon and eggs in stock. Oh, just remembered this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1IxOS4VzKM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1IxOS4VzKM (Content Warning: NSFW!)
z3ugma 8mo ago
I have a calendar reminder on August 4, 2026 to send a message to my high school English teacher from 20 years ago, for having this date stuck in my head that whole time.
pmarreck 8mo ago
August 5, 2026 is the date mentioned in this? I put a note in my calendar!

165 points by wallflower 8mo ago

aebtebeten 8mo ago

the soviet cartoon version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LNHYz89sNc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LNHYz89sNc

gsf_emergency_6 8mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(poem)#:~:text=Flame%20and%20Shadow%20fell,her%20to%20criminal%20prosecution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(po... Almost politically incorrect woke? Another Bradbury adaptation https://youtu.be/02FgildTKMs https://youtu.be/02FgildTKMs (Here there be Tygers)
lilytweed 8mo ago
The first thing I thought of. Beautiful version.
pixl97 8mo ago
Did the wall clock say 2027? There still time for our in house robots then.
culebron21 8mo ago
The English description says "Russia, 1987". This is incorrect. It's 1984 (before the Perestroyka polity), Uzbekfilm studio in Tashkent (now Uzbekistan). Interestingly, the crew surnames are some Uzbek, some Russian, some Korean (Tsoi) and even one German last name.
- gsf_emergency_6 8mo ago
  Alexander Rozendorn (famous dude), probably not a Baltic German? Lagniappe: https://archive.ph/2026.02.07-024423/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/6/what-barak-epstein-audio-says-about-israeli-controlling-demographics#:~:text=Americans%20and%20the%20French%20are%20especially%20welcome%2C https://archive.ph/2026.02.07-024423/https://www.aljazeera.c...
  - aebtebeten 8mo ago
    Overheard: "an אנגלו-סקסונית is someone with really weird ideas about religion" Does 2022 count? Looks like VVP sent some of his best; not only ABP but also MAG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leiz5L-B6Vo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leiz5L-B6Vo EDIT: a Dorn, that can be part of a Baum, but otherwise I'm not getting many hits for А?Р. ЭРР?
    - gsf_emergency_6 8mo ago
      Ah egregious kernel-bug that I haven't fixed yet :( Looks like inner sharpbigot/schizo indeed got confused with E? maybe not quickly fixable, so I'd better find a win-win way to leverage it ;)? I know a person who published(!, but easier to check) citation-bugs of this variety (not defending this, just pointing out a possible WASP-slav superposition condition :) "Orthogonally", PH might have (linked)some answers to your presumed queries https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46940953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46940953 Hilarious YouTube comment: the image you inspired of collecting nickels* in front of cultural steamrollers is beginning to look like GOAT (*Well-bred dogs as "nicklers of men"?)
    - gsf_emergency_6 8mo ago
      (After a long day of unsuccessfully riding herd on an "smart undergrad" LLM coder..) My slightly exasperated inner bigot hunches that there's something to learn from the antiparallel failures by which OpenAI tried to assimilate 官 into 商 VS how the local polity has been trying to distill 官 from 商(-adjacent, so a form of "nickling"?) https://xcancel.com/techemails/status/2018034985563996291 https://xcancel.com/techemails/status/2018034985563996291 https://www.techemails.com/p/the-fate-of-civilization-is-at-stake https://www.techemails.com/p/the-fate-of-civilization-is-at-...

chikinpotpi 8mo ago

how dare you make my feel my own feelings

sonofhans 8mo ago

I’ll always upvote Bradbury; what a master. Isaac Asimov used to talk about “the big 3” of science fiction of his era: himself (natch), Arthur C Clarke, and Ray Bradbury. The more I read of all those cats, and boy have I read them, I came to see that Asimov was wrong, and that Bradbury was a different and better writer altogether. Bradbury’s stories are about people, deeply real and deeply feeling people. This thread is young and already comments are about how Bradbury made folks feel. He was a humanist, like Ursula LeGuin, and less interested in exactly how the ray guns worked. Frank Herbert seems like this to me as well, very humane, opposite of Greg Bear and Kim Stanley Robinson and (later stage) Neal Stephenson. If you love Bradbury then take a look at Ian McDonald. When I read “Rainmaker Cometh” for the first time I had to do a double-take, so sure I was that it was a new Bradbury story.

mrec 8mo ago
> take a look at Ian McDonald +1. I loved Desolation Road in particular; a sort of 100 Years of Solitude but on Mars and with more than 2 names for its 3000 characters.
- sonofhans 8mo ago
  Yes, that is one of my very favorite books. My life is measured in part by how often I allow myself to read it.
- dyeje 8mo ago
  That book is so painful to read because of that lol.
- munificent 8mo ago
  > more than 2 names for its 3000 characters. God, thank you for this. Everyone seems to love that book and I found it hopelessly confusing and pointless.
srean 8mo ago
Thank you for suggesting Ian Mcdonald, have not read any of his. I absolutely rever and adore Bradbury, probably because he has a knack of articulating so well, the emotions and esthetics that we have in common, that I leave unarticulated, more so now that I am no longer a teenager.

focusedone 8mo ago

wow

kickofline 8mo ago

I read this in high school English class. It remains one of my favorites.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

FpUser 8mo ago

Soviet cartoon (1984) based on the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quyaaszg6jc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quyaaszg6jc

linkjuice4all 8mo ago

Worth noting - the original WW1 poem written by Sara Teasdale with the same name that may have inspired Bradbury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(poem) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(po...

raptorraver 8mo ago
I made a composition for string orchestra and male voice from that poem 10 years ago. It's a very powerful poem. https://soundcloud.com/henrisokka/there-will-come-soft-rains https://soundcloud.com/henrisokka/there-will-come-soft-rains
Sharlin 8mo ago
The poem explicitly features in the story, so I'd say it's pretty guaranteed to have inspired Bradbury ;) --- The SSAATTBB setting of Teasdale's words by Latvian contemporary choral composer Ēriks Ešenvalds is fittingly powerful and a guaranteed source of chills: https://youtu.be/qwSSVDgY-Sw https://youtu.be/qwSSVDgY-Sw The choir I sing in performed the piece for the first time in spring 2022, and against the backdrop of the pandemic and Russia's invasion the words felt incredibly topical and poignant. We're performing it again this spring. While we're at it, a couple of other ethereally beautiful Ešenvalds settings of Teasdale's texts: Only in Sleep – https://youtu.be/fvPynMI6Umc https://youtu.be/fvPynMI6Umc (for choir and a soprano soloist) Stars – https://youtu.be/SK2Rd3qgIGE https://youtu.be/SK2Rd3qgIGE (for choir and tuned wine glasses!)
- KnuthIsGod 8mo ago
  Beautiful. Sending the link to my Latvian relatives.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

soulofmischief 8mo ago

I upvote anything Bradbury or Teasdale. For anyone interested, here's a short game I made in 2 days for Ludum Dare back in 2019, which was inspired by the original poem and Bradbury's short story. I didn't have enough time to balance the gameplay and add more scenarios, but it's a neat experience and contains one of my favorite personal musical compositions. https://badsoft.co/games/soft-rains/ https://badsoft.co/games/soft-rains/

scarmig 8mo ago

I read this recently and wanted to post it on August 4. You jumped the gun!

nicbou 8mo ago

Text version: https://short-stories.co/@raybradbury/there-will-come-soft-rains-6k8vr4xxlnmj https://short-stories.co/@raybradbury/there-will-come-soft-r...

a_shovel 8mo ago

The paragraph about the stove making dozens of breakfasts as the house collapses at the climax of the story is what always stuck with me most. It would take a better writer than me to say why it works so well, I just know it does.

greenbit 8mo ago
What do you do with an impossible situation? You do what you can. This maniacal robot stove somehow evokes a sense of desperation we can instinctively empathize with. A fiction of an intelligent machine, facing doom, deserving of pity. Or at least I like that idea better than just some mundane physical explanation.
munificent 8mo ago
> It would take a better writer than me to say why it works so well, I just know it does. One way to look at fiction is that it's a way to express an idea indirectly that defies explanation in literal non-fiction terms. There are non-verbal thoughts and feelings we can all understand, but can't seem to put them into words in order to transmit from one brain to another without having to go indirectly through a metaphor or allegory.

MengerSponge 8mo ago

Selected Shorts had an episode where Kathleen Chalfant read this! https://www.symphonyspace.org/selected-shorts/episodes/uncanny https://www.symphonyspace.org/selected-shorts/episodes/uncan... I can't find the episode after a quick search... I wish there were an archive of their past episodes, but I imagine someone would have to pay extra to the performers for that right.

shmerl 8mo ago

Poor dog. Depressive story from The Martian Chronicles with very futuristic smart home depiction. Not unusually dark for Bradbury though.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

kazinator 8mo ago

The moment in time described in the story cannot be very long after the implied nuclear explosion, because surely the house cannot have more than a couple weeks' worth of bacon and eggs in stock. Oh, just remembered this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1IxOS4VzKM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1IxOS4VzKM (Content Warning: NSFW!)

z3ugma 8mo ago

I have a calendar reminder on August 4, 2026 to send a message to my high school English teacher from 20 years ago, for having this date stuck in my head that whole time.

pmarreck 8mo ago

August 5, 2026 is the date mentioned in this? I put a note in my calendar!