A review by trish204
A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories by Ray Bradbury

4.0

Rain. Water. Here on Earth it means life. Without it, there would be no forests, not grass, no nothing.
On Venus (the Venus in this story anyway) there is constant rain and wind and thunderstorms and all the horrible consequences such as floods from it. It rains for seven years without end, then you get two hours of sun. That's it.
So what would that do to humans? Living in such an environment?
Well, I guess it's not even the rain itself that is the problem, but monotony in general and a complete lack of sunlight. Yes, we can take supplements with our food to keep our bodies "healthy" but even I who do not like hot summers would get grumpy without the sun.

So this is the story of humans living on Venus and a class of schoolchildren who actively experience sun for the first time. And it's the story of one of those children who is different because she was born and lived on Earth.

It's a story about longing, cruelty, depression, sadness and it makes the reader appreciate the perfect conditions we are living in here on our Blue Marble. It's also heart-breaking.

Once again, Ray Bradbury shows that he is a master storyteller who doesn't need a lot of text to drive home a point. Still, I can't give this the full 5 stars - for starters, the typos were off-putting; but it's also that for all the feelings I had during only 4 pages of story, I know short stories that made me care (and cry) even more!