Bibliographic data Synopsis of “Dark Carnival” “Dark Carnival,” published in the United States by Arkham House in 1947, stands as one of Ray Bradbury’s earliest short story collections and is widely regarded as a pivotal work in the evolution of American science fiction. This collection assembles 27 pieces penned between 1943 and 1947, with several … Read more
Ray Bradbury’s short story ‘The Other Foot,’ included in his collection ‘The Illustrated Man’ (1951), tells the story of a black community on Mars that tensely awaits the arrival of a rocket from Earth, the first in twenty years and with a white man on board. The inhabitants of Mars, who had fled a past of racial discrimination and violence on Earth, are confronted with their memories and the temptation to reverse the roles of oppression as they welcome this new visitor.
“There Will Come Soft Rains” is a short story by Ray Bradbury published in May 1950 in Collier’s magazine and later included in the collection The Martian Chronicles (1950). Set in the near future, the story presents us with a fully automated home whose inhabitants have disappeared. Although there are no longer any people to serve, the house continues to perform its routine functions: it prepares breakfast, cleans, reads poems, and performs a series of other tasks that serve as a memory of a family reduced to nothing more than shadows on an exterior wall.