| "There Will Come Soft Rains" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Short story by Ray Bradbury | |||
| Country | United States | ||
| Language | English | ||
| Genre(s) | Science fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction | ||
| Publication | |||
| Published in | Collier's Weekly | ||
| Publication type | Periodical | ||
| Media type | Print magazine | ||
| Publication date | May 6, 1950 (issue date) | ||
| Chronology | |||
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"There Will Come Soft Rains" is a science fiction short story by author Ray Bradbury written as a chronicle about a lone house that stands intact in a Californian city that has otherwise been obliterated by a nuclear bomb, and then is destroyed in a fire caused by a windstorm. The title is from a 1918 poem of the same name by Sara Teasdale that was published during World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic. The story was first published in 1950 in two different versions in two separate publications, a one-page short story in Collier's magazine and a chapter of the fix-up novel The Martian Chronicles.
The author regarded it as "the one story that represents the essence of Ray Bradbury".[1] Bradbury's foresight in recognizing the potential for the complete self-destruction of humans by nuclear war in the work was recognized by the Pulitzer Prize Board in conjunction with awarding a Special Citation in 2007 that noted, "While time has (mostly) quelled the likelihood of total annihilation, Bradbury was a lone voice among his contemporaries in contemplating the potentialities of such horrors."[2] The author considered the short story as the only one in The Martian Chronicles to be a work of science fiction.[3]
- ^ Bradbury, Ray (1980-11-25). "Ray Bradbury: The Science of Science Fiction". Christian Science Monitor (Interview). Interviewed by Arthur Unger. Retrieved 2020-09-06.
- ^ Murphy, Sean. "Spotlight: Ray Bradbury". Pulitzer Prize Board. Retrieved 2020-09-06.
- ^ Bradbury, Ray (1997). "Green Town, Somewhere on Mars; Mars, Somewhere in Egypt". The Martian Chronicles (Epub ed.). HarperCollins Publishers Inc. (published 2013). ISBN 9780062242266.