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...

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

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.

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

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

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

Soviet cartoon (1984) based on the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quyaaszg6jc

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/

wow

how dare you make my feel my own feelings