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From: @RUTGERS.ARPA:milne@uci-icse
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: stories of automatic houses (slight spoiler)
Message-ID: <1779@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 26-Apr-85 04:27:50 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.1779
Posted: Fri Apr 26 04:27:50 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Apr-85 06:25:26 EST
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: Alastair Milne <milne@uci-icse>



   Somebody asked about a story where a house ran everything by itself, in the
   assumption that it was serving the occupants, but the occupants were
   actually dead.  Though I suspect the idea has been used in several places,
   the place from which I know it is one of Ray Bradbury's "Martian
   Chronicles".  The house was evidently well removed from the centre of the
   nuclear explosion that devastated the area (since it's still standing, and
   running pretty well), but still close enough that all that's left of the
   occupants, who appeared to have been enjoying an afternoon on the front
   lawn, is shadows burned into the paint.

   I don't remember the name of the chronicle: something like "The Spring of
   Silver Showers" (which wouldn't be too surprising from the author of "I
   Sing the Body Electric").  The date was August 202x, where x may be 6.

   How did the house keep going?  Where did the power come from?  I don't
   recall whether the story says, but I imagine that private generators or
   batteries may have been brought on-line automatically when regional power
   failed.  It was, after all, that kind of house.  Bradbury seldom seems to
   concern himself with details like that.  He seems to prefer mood and
   coloration, using details only where they contribute to these.

					Alastair Milne