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<\/a>Although perhaps most widely remembered for his Prometheus-winning novel Fahrenheit 451,<\/em> <\/a>Bradbury was a master of the short story.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThere Will Come Soft Rains,\u201d one of his most haunting tales, imagines a distant future following a nuclear holocaust.<\/p>\n That future is now in the story, published in 1950 and imagining the then-far-distant year of 2026 in early August.<\/p>\n Bradbury’s story imagines an automated house – now a reality in millions of homes. Hauntingly, the house continues to operate even after its suburban family has been vaporized, going up in flames in Allendale, California.<\/p>\n \u201cFinally, only one wall is left, protruding from the rubble. A fading voice echoes from inside the wall: \u201cToday is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is . . .\u201d<\/p>\n Interestingly, in both this story and his most famous novel, Bradbury uses fire as the powerful, chaotic force and vivid symbol of destruction of civilization itself.<\/p>\n Bradbury (1920-2012) didn\u2019t live to see this day. \u00a0Happily, no one else in America has experienced the particular future that he wrote about so wistfully in his story. At least, so far.<\/p>\n \u201cThough America might not have suffered the full extent of Bradbury\u2019s post-apocalyptic predictions, the predictions are nowhere near as outlandish as they might seem at first glance,\u201d Kaitlyn Kipert writes in NR online.<\/p>\n \u201cSo today, August 4, 2026, we should consider Bradbury\u2019s short story a cautionary tale.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiepert also cautions us about current trends – in technology and war.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t let the ominous gloom of the piece fade too quickly. Don\u2019t shrug it off thinking, \u201cI\u2019m so glad Bradbury got it wrong!\u201d<\/p>\n Because maybe he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201c2025 research by SQ Magazine estimates that 101 million American homes have smart speakers. It also predicts that the market for voice assistants will reach $11.71 billion in 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cInvestment banking company Morgan Stanley predicts that the humanoid robot market could exceed $5 trillion by 2050 with over 1 billion robots created. Though the initial use would largely be commercial, it is only a matter of time before these humanoid robots could take homes and communities by storm.<\/p>\n “AI is ascendant, and despite its incredible potential for good, it also has the power to lower human intellect through hyper-dependence on machine learning.<\/p>\n In the end, it couldn\u2019t save its owners, and it couldn\u2019t save itself.\u201d<\/p>\n FOR FURTHER READING<\/strong><\/p>\n * Read Kiepert\u2019s full story \u201cWe\u2019ve Survived Ray Bradbury\u2019s Nuclear Holocaust\u201d<\/a> on NR Online.<\/p>\n * Read the Prometheus Blog appreciation of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451<\/a>, <\/em>inducted in 1984 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.<\/p>\n * Read LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg’s mid-1980s interview with Ray Bradbury, republished here<\/a> and here<\/a> in two parts on the Prometheus Blog.<\/p>\n ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n *\u00a0Join us!<\/b> To help sustain the Prometheus Awards, honor outstanding freedom-loving fantastical fiction and find fellowship with other fans,\u00a0join<\/a> the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer international association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n Libertarian futurists understand that culture matters. We believe that literature and the arts can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future. In some ways, culture can be even more influential and powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights, dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.<\/p>\n * Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/b>For a full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 including in the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced \u00a0Prometheus Awards page<\/a>\u00a0on the LFS website. This page includes links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each work that has won a Prometheus since 1979 fits the awards\u2019 distinctive dual focus on both\u00a0 <\/span>liberty and literary quality.<\/p>\n *\u00a0Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog\u2019s\u00a0Video page.<\/a><\/p>\n * Read \u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/a> an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/i>\u00a0that highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n * Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society\u2019s Facebook page<\/a> for comments, updates and links to Prometheus Blog posts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Michael Grossberg Today, Aug. 5, 2026, is a key day in the enduring fiction of Ray Bradbury. Although perhaps most widely remembered for his Prometheus-winning novel Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury was a master of the short story.\u00a0 \u201cThere Will Come Soft Rains,\u201d one of his most haunting tales, imagines a distant future following a nuclear … Continue reading The fire this time: Ray Bradbury\u2019s imagination endures, and marks a milestone\u2028<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2868,1585,2201],"tags":[641,68,1029,2913],"class_list":["post-11330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dystopian-utopian-literature","category-fiction-in-the-news","category-ray-bradbury","tag-fahrenheit-451","tag-ray-bradbury","tag-short-stories","tag-there-will-come-soft-rains"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-2WK","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11330"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11335,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11330\/revisions\/11335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/a>That\u2019s how the story ends.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>“Bradbury\u2019s short story is a stark reminder that technology is an insufficient savior. It is empty, mechanical, heartless. It can be trained, but it can never be <\/i>what a human inherently is.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n