# "And When They Appear"

*The Urth list — 3 messages, 3 voices, 20 Sep 2000*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2390>

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### Michael Andre-Driussi
*20 Sep 2000, 09:45*

> Adam wrote:
> I finally got around to reading STRANGE TRAVELLERS, though I'd read a
> number of the stories in it before.  On a first reading, I'd say the
> major one I'd missed is "And When They Appear."  This is one of Wolfe's
> grimmest stories (which is saying a lot), made more powerful by the
> matter-of-fact narration and by the deceptive "Christmas story"
> atmosphere of the first half.  (It just struck me that this first half
> reads a lot like a Bradbury pastiche.)

I, too, thought of Bradbury with this story . . .

http://www.english.bham.ac.uk/ultan/st.htm

there's not much more than that, but I provide the link anyway.

=mantis=

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### Adam Stephanides
*20 Sep 2000, 15:33 · follows Michael Andre-Driussi*

> Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:
> 
> I, too, thought of Bradbury with this story . . .

And the link you provide cites "There Will Come Soft Rains."  I actually
hadn't been thinking of that one; just the idea of a boy meeting a whole
bunch of fictional or legendary Christmas figures on Christmas struck me
as very Bradbury-like.  Of course, if Bradbury had written it, it would
have ended very differently (although he did write some dark stuff early
in his career).

While I'm thinking of it: the man who takes Sherby is referred to
several times as "Corporal Charlie" (as he instructs Sherby) but once as
"Uncle Charlie."  Is this last a typo?

--Adam

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### Tony Ellis
*22 Sep 2000, 12:40 · follows Adam Stephanides*

> Adam Stephanides wrote:
> Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:

>> I, too, thought of Bradbury with this story . . .

> And the link you provide cites "There Will Come Soft Rains."  I actually
> hadn't been thinking of that one;

'And when they appear' does seem to have something of a Bradbury vibe.
‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ is the obvious choice, but even when I was
reading the story for the first time I thought of another:
'Jack-in-the-box', collected in 'The Small Assassin'.

That too is a story of a boy living in a house that is at once his whole
world and his prison. Like House, the boy’s mother wants to keep her
little boy from going out into the real world. House uses holograms, she
uses lies. Both stories share the sense that the protagonist has to
escape this situation in order to be fully alive, that Jack can’t stay
in his box forever.

Both seem to be, among other things, rite-of-passage stories. They’re
about the bittersweet process of growing up and leaving behind the world
of childhood with all its pretty lies. Wolfe’s story, as I read that
ambiguous ending, seems to be saying that we should take something with
us from childhood. Sherby isn’t nice to Santa, he doesn’t want to play
let’s-pretend any longer, but he’s left at the end wishing that he had.

```
Tony Ellis
On-line Editor, PC Format magazine
01225 442244 x2349
http://www.pcformat.co.uk
```

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