"And When They Appear"

Tony Ellis · 22 Sep 2000, 12:40 · from urth-v0029.mbox · original

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From: "Tony Ellis" <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Subject: (urth) re: "And When They Appear"
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 13:40:48 +0100
Message-ID: <urth-v0029-0221 at digest.urth.net>
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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.
=E2=80=98There Will Come Soft Rains=E2=80=99 is the obvious choice, but eve=
n 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=E2=80=99s 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=E2=80=99t s=
tay
in his box forever.

Both seem to be, among other things, rite-of-passage stories. They=E2=80=99=
re
about the bittersweet process of growing up and leaving behind the world
of childhood with all its pretty lies. Wolfe=E2=80=99s story, as I read that
ambiguous ending, seems to be saying that we should take something with
us from childhood. Sherby isn=E2=80=99t nice to Santa, he doesn=E2=80=99t w=
ant to play
let=E2=80=99s-pretend any longer, but he=E2=80=99s 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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