Mandatory link: the Zarelli soundtrack, using Leonard Nimoy's reading.

https://open.spotify.com/track/0DflgiMYRQP3UXtZ47NBus?si=XGR...

I accidentally started a reread of Octiva Butler's Parable of the Sower in late 2024 (I'd read it many years ago, but forgot the timeline). It was eerie...

Today is August 4, 2026

Singer-songwriter Silvana Estrada named an album released last year Vendrán Suaves Lluvias (meaning There Will Come Soft Rains). She talked about how she and her brother read The Martian Chronicles as kids and she remembered the Sara Teasdale poem quoted at the end. She said she composed the songs at a difficult time in her life and, I guess, something about that image in the story (and the poem in it) resonated then.

For anyone curious, there's a Tiny Desk Concert of songs from the album at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9PoZ0Vcb_s and an interview, in English, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcQbB7Dc83U

(Shared this on another post of the story last night, figured I might as well here, too.)

I wonder if the latest Jurassic Park: Rebirth film drew from this?

There is a reference to global warming that is similar to the poem. That the world will heat up, and humanity will die, and the earth will continue on as it has for a million years. The film mentioned the “the earth will shake us off, like a summer cold”.

This seems fairly comparable to the soft rains poem in this piece.

The original download link's file having "...(1).pdf" in the name got me looking for a duplicate download for longer than I'd like to admit.

I read Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky recently and I think it takes more-or-less takes direct inspiration from this story (and the poem) with modern aesthetics. I liked it, it’s more dark-humorous than strictly bleak, but still pretty bleak as you read between the lines.

The story of a smart home that can't tell when you're not home! :-)

this version seems to be missing large sections compared to the other posted version, like how the mice throughly clean up the debris after the dog's entrance, the dog smelling food through the kitchen door and scratching at it, etc etc

That dog scene wrecked me. Last living thing in the house, and the system just cleans it up like it’s another mess. No mourning, no pause. Just efficiency.