[HN Gopher] There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]
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There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]
Author : wallflower
Score : 102 points
Date : 2026-02-01 16:31 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.btboces.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.btboces.org)
| aebtebeten wrote:
| the soviet cartoon version:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LNHYz89sNc
| gsf_emergency_6 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Will_Come_Soft_Rains_(po...
|
| Almost politically incorrect woke?
|
| Another Bradbury adaptation
|
| https://youtu.be/02FgildTKMs
|
| ( _Here there be Tygers_ )
| jmatthiass wrote:
| The first thing I thought of. Beautiful version.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Did the wall clock say 2027? There still time for our in house
| robots then.
| chikinpotpi wrote:
| how dare you make my feel my own feelings
| sonofhans wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| That book is so painful to read because of that lol.
| srean wrote:
| 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.
| sonofhans wrote:
| He captured childhood in a way that perhaps no one else has.
| His children have dignity and purpose and seriousness and are
| still absolutely full of joy and randomness. William
| Wordsworth, maybe, revered and portrayed childhood as well as
| Bradbury.
| srean wrote:
| Dandelion Wine is one of my favorite.
| thedanbob wrote:
| > Bradbury's stories are about people, deeply real and deeply
| feeling people. ... and less interested in exactly how the ray
| guns worked.
|
| Maybe this is why I never really got Bradbury. When I read
| scifi, I can't help but consider the logic of the world that's
| being described, and Bradbury's worlds aren't really logical
| (e.g. who would live on such a strict timetable? wouldn't all
| the singing and rhyming be annoying? how is the house still
| being powered?). But it makes a lot more sense if the point is
| to convey feelings. Kind of like an impressionist painting I
| suppose.
| focusedone wrote:
| wow
| kickofline wrote:
| I read this in high school English class. It remains one of my
| favorites.
| linkjuice4all wrote:
| 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_(po...
| raptorraver wrote:
| 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
| Sharlin wrote:
| 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 Eriks Esenvalds is fittingly
| powerful and a guaranteed source of chills:
|
| 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
| Esenvalds settings of Teasdale's texts:
|
| Only in Sleep - https://youtu.be/fvPynMI6Umc (for choir and a
| soprano soloist)
|
| Stars - https://youtu.be/SK2Rd3qgIGE (for choir and tuned wine
| glasses!)
| soulofmischief wrote:
| 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/
| scarmig wrote:
| I read this recently and wanted to post it on August 4. You
| jumped the gun!
| FpUser wrote:
| Soviet cartoon (1984) based on the story:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quyaaszg6jc
| nicbou wrote:
| Text version: https://short-stories.co/@raybradbury/there-will-
| come-soft-r...
| a_shovel wrote:
| 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.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Selected Shorts had an episode where Kathleen Chalfant read this!
|
| 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.
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(page generated 2026-02-05 23:00 UTC)