The Long Rain - Critique

Critique

Rob Fletcher uses the opening paragraph, in which Bradbury describes the rain of Venus with phrases like: "It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping in the eyes, an undertow at the ankles; it was a rain to drown all rains and the memory of rains." to illustrate the fact that Bradbury turns the rain into an "ominous force" that "threatens very survival."

"The Long Rain", as a story, is a "typical Bradbury space yarn." His presentation of Venus as being rain-soaked has been proven wrong by more modern science, but was in line with the scientific views of the time. The story was one in a large number of stories by many science fiction writers of the time that presented an "orthodoxy" that although it would be much more difficult than Mars, humans would fight to colonize Venus. While his description of Venus is not scientifically accurate, "Bradbury's power of description makes it real enough."