Situational irony: an event directly contradicts strong expectationsģ Irony Shadows The west side of the house is charred completely except for five “nuclear shadows,” or silhouettes left by the family members as they died in the sudden, instantaneous explosion. In nine years, Soft Rains will succumb to the unrelenting forces of time catching up.1 “There Will Come Soft Rains” Ray BradburyĢ Irony Irony is defined as the effect created when a writer contrasts expectations and reality. I see this less now than from the pulp and ‘golden age’ eras because authors want to make their stories relevant beyond a particular date range. Soft Rains suffers from a common problem in science fiction: using dates that eventually come and make the stories, well, dated. It seems we’ve dropped the ball, but once in a while we see a glimmer of hope like private space corporations and the recent flybys of Pluto, Saturn, and Jupiter. It’s a couple of generations later and we still are worried about things like a nuclear holocaust while our space program has withered from neglect. The next millennium was so far off that it was like Star Trek or Lost in Space, or at least something cheesy like This Island Earth or Destination Mars. In the 1950s, it seemed that we’d be off to see the stars (or at least living on the moon or Mars) by this time. Everything within the story can still theoretically happen, although we’re about to reach the year the story takes place (2026). This story made me realize just how powerful the written word can be.īradbury’s lyrical style still rings true 67 years after it was originally published. The way the house battled for its life against the flames. The bright, chipper language that nobody would ever hear again announcing the daily schedule while it cleaned up and made the meals that nobody would eat. Two things within the story made me sad enough to show it, and unlike most folks who would think it would be the dog in the story, it was the odd things that set me off – the shadow of the family burned into the side of the house when they were playing catch, and the house itself, still doing its best to fulfill its primary function and reason for existing. I didn’t understand why, but something in this story had found a way through the maze of my mis-wired brain and triggered an emotional response.

I read this short story and it did something that shocked me.

I was reading high school level novels in grade school, eventually graduating to college textbooks on astronomy and science when I was nine years old.

I encountered There Will Come Soft Rains when I was a little kid.

Author of there will come soft rains