book review the martian chronicles

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The Martian Chronicles: Two reviews and a “Book Chat”

Posted by Kat Hooper , Stuart Starosta , Bill Capossere and Jana Nyman ´s rating: 4 | Ray Bradbury | SFF Reviews | 15 comments |

The Martian Chronicles is a collection of Ray Bradbury’s stories about the human colonization of Mars which were previously published in the pulp magazines of the late 1940s. The stories are arranged in chronological order with the dates of the events at the beginning of each story. In the first edition of The Martian Chronicles , published in 1950, the events took place in a future 1999-2027, but a reprinted 1997 edition pushes all events forward to 2030-2057. Because it’s a story collection, The Martian Chronicles has an episodic feel which has been made more fluid by connecting the stories with short vignettes, similar to the structure of Bradbury’s collection The Illustrated Man .

In the first story, “Rocket Summer,” we visit a small town in Ohio while the first human exploratory spaceship takes off for Mars. Bradbury explains in the introduction to The Martian Chronicles that this small-town mid-America feel was influenced by Sherwood Anderson’s novel Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life which Bradbury admired and hoped to emulate.

The next two stories, “Ylla” and “The Summer Night,” show us what the Martians are like. They’re humanoid in form with brown skin and round yellow eyes. Like humans, they live in houses and towns, eat and drink, sleep, age, read books, study science, desire love, become jealous and irritable, and commit murder. (I find it amusing that the Martians have the same kinds of depressing marriages we see in Bradbury’s stories set on Earth.) But the Martians are telepathic and the humans’ approach is causing them to quote our poetry, sing our songs, and adopt other aspects of human culture without understanding why.

Next comes “The Taxpayer” in which an Ohio man is trying to get on the third expedition to Mars (the second one failed). This very short vignette tells us that things are going badly on Earth and that an atomic war is expected in about two years. “The Third Expedition” (originally published in Planet Stories as “Mars is Heaven!”) describes what happens when the third doomed mission lands on Mars. This story doesn’t quite work with the chronology of The Martial Chronicles because it portrays astronauts from 2030 growing up in the small Midwestern towns of early 20 th century America. It also ironically highlights the biggest problem with The Martian Chronicles when one of the astronauts asks “Do you think that the civilizations of two planets can progress at the same rate and evolve in the same way?” Clearly the astronaut doesn’t think that’s possible, but in these early stories, Bradbury’s Martian culture is just too much like ours. Even so, “The Third Expedition” is a clever little horror story and one of my favorites in the collection.

“And the Moon Be Still as Bright” is the story of the fourth, finally successful, expedition to Mars. The Martians have mostly died of chickenpox — humans, in our blundering way, have inadvertently killed them off. Most of the men of the expedition don’t care, eager to begin exploration and colonization, but Captain Wilder and an archaeologist named Spender regret that humans have destroyed such a beautiful civilization, like they destroy everything else they touch. There’s a lot of social commentary about 1940s American culture in this story.

The next several stories are about the rapid spread of humanity on Mars. “The Settlers” and “The Shore” describe the type of people who came to Mars from Earth, “The Green Morning” follows a Johnny Appleseed type of character who plants trees to increase oxygen levels, and “The Locusts” and “Interim” describes how men and women made Mars look just like another Earth. In “Night Meeting,” we learn that “even time is crazy up here” when a colonist from Earth meets a Martian who seems to be in a different time-stream. This story also reminds us that civilizations both rise and fall and that perhaps it’s best that we don’t know the future of our own civilization.

Male explorers and settlers have been the main characters so far but “The Musicians,” a story original to The Martian Chronicles , shows us what boys do for fun on Mars, “The Wilderness” features two women who are getting ready to emigrate from Earth, and “The Old Ones” focuses briefly on the elderly. Those first courageous men won’t be forgotten, though; in “The Naming of Names” we learn that they’ve been immortalized — many places on Mars have been named after them. These human names, and other industrial-sounding names, have replaced the nature-focused names used by the Martians.

In “Usher II” Bradbury returns to one of his favorite pet peeves — book burning. A man who has left Earth to get away from the “moral climate” police is angry that they’ve now shown up on Mars. To get back at them for outlawing Edgar Allen Poe’s work, he uses his fortune to build his own House of Usher and he invites them all to a party. This story is entertaining, but I’m not sure that Bradbury makes his case. After what happens, I think the moral climate police will feel they have even more grounds for banning Poe.

“The Martian” is a terrific horror story which shows us what becomes of one telepathic Martian when humans, full of painful memories and wanting to start over, arrive on his planet. This is one of the best stories in The Martian Chronicles .

The next few stories, “The Luggage Store,” “The Off Season,” and “The Watchers,” tell of the nuclear war on Earth that was predicted in earlier stories. It can be heard on the radio and seen from Mars and soon the colonists get an urgent message: “Come home.” And so they go back to Earth.

“The Silent Towns” tells the story of Walter and Genevieve, living hundreds of miles apart, who assume they’re the last humans left on Mars. This story is entertaining, but highlights the rampant sexism so often found in the science fiction written for pulp magazines. Where does Walter decide is the most likely place to find a woman? The beauty shop. (Genevieve, what the heck are you doing in a beauty shop on a deserted planet?) Then, after driving for hundreds of miles to find her, Walter rejects and runs away from the last woman on Mars because she’s overweight. Really.

Bradbury is back to doing what he does best with the next two stories. “The Long Years” tells of Hathaway, one of the crew of the Fourth Expedition, who stayed on Mars with his family when the rest of the colonists left. When Captain Wilder, his former commander, returns to Mars after exploring other planets in the solar system, he finds Hathaway and wonders how his wife and kids stayed young while Hathaway kept aging normally.

After all of the destruction that humans brought upon themselves (we nearly obliterated the population of two planets), the last story, “The Million-Year Picnic,” offers a bit of hope as two families escape the devastated Earth and plan to start over. To ensure that humans don’t make the same mistakes we made before, they burn books, maps, files and anything else that contains the sorts of ideas that may have led to our destruction. (A little ironic, I think. Apparently, Bradbury thought it was noble to burn some of our literature.)

Whenever I read Bradbury, I’m struck by his lofty visions, in the early 20 th century, for future technological developments and space exploration. He envisioned a degree of achievement by the 21 st century that we’re not even close to yet. However, at the same time, it seems that he didn’t foresee how much American social culture would change even during his lifetime. Thus, in most of his stories set in the future we find the juxtaposition of robots and rockets with the same sexism and racism experienced in 1950. Fortunately, the nuclear world war that he and many SF writers imagined has also not happened. Perhaps we can give Bradbury some of the credit for warning us so vividly.

The Martian Chronicles is some of Ray Bradbury’s most-loved work and foundational reading for science fiction fans. If you’ve never read it, or haven’t read it recently, I encourage you to try Blackstone Audio’s version.

~Kat Hooper

I really didn’t like The Martian Chronicles when I first read it last year. Considering its legendary status in the genre and its very high ratings by other reviewers I respect, I was really looking forward to finally reading this classic SF tale. But what I discovered was a series of loosely-connected vignettes with some connecting material that seemed fairly superfluous. While I found the first few stories actually featuring Martians very well written and intriguing, once the Martians went offstage and were replaced by an endless series of annoying, hokey Midwesterners from 1950s America, my interest died more quickly than the Martians themselves.

However, I knew I must be missing something.  This is considered one of the greatest works of mid-20 th century science fiction, and is highly regarded even by the literati outside the genre. So I decided to try the audiobook version, which is narrated by Scott Brick (there are several versions available on Audible). I’m glad I did.

Ray Bradbury ’s lyrical, melancholy, poetic writing is ideally suited to narration with the right voice. The stories take on added emotional weight when you can hear his beautiful descriptions of the Martian landscape, empty crystal cities, rocket ships lifting off from Earth, and the silent viewing of nuclear holocaust from space. The imagery is powerful, and the events of the stories are humorous, tragic, melancholy, and ironic by turns.

After a second exposure, I think I understood the themes of the stories better as well. Initially I thought Bradbury was again wallowing in nostalgia for a long-lost Midwestern America of the 1920’s (like he did in Dandelion Wine ), particularly in stories such as “The Earth Men,” “The Third Expedition,” “The Martian,” and “The Long Years.” On further reflection, his critique about the American dream of space flight, colonization of outer space, conquering of alien races, and striving to remake the alien into our own image became much clearer. His tone is far more ironic than I first recognized, and his vision of America’s foolhardy confidence and arrogance in colonizing Mars is expertly achieved with parallels to American’s treatment of the American Indians in their colonization of the Western frontier.

“Ylla” is the opening story and the most impressive. It’s about an older Martian couple in a strained marriage. It’s the only story told entirely from the Martian perspective, and details the tragic events triggered by the arrival of the First Expedition to Mars. It is filled with universal truths and the savagery that can lurk underneath the surface of any relationship.

“The Earth Men” is an incredible mix of irony, horror, and humor. The Second Expedition to Mars successfully makes contact with a Martian town’s inhabitants, only to be thoroughly ignored. The Earth Men become increasingly frustrated by the indifference of the Martians, until they are finally granted attention by a particular Martian. However, although he is receptive to their claims of being from Earth, his reasons are far more sinister than anyone could have anticipated.

“The Third Expedition” tugs at the nostalgia strings in a very subversive way. The Third Expedition touches down in a different location, hoping to escape the mysterious fate of the first two Expeditions, which were never heard from again. But instead of finding golden-skinned Martians with almond-shaped eyes, they encounter their loved ones from the past impossibly living again in a perfect recreation of their childhood homes. Things are not what they seem, as the Earth men again discover.

“—And the Moon Be Still as Bright” and “The Settlers,” in which a member of the Fourth Expedition in entranced by the mysterious beauty of the lost Martian civilization, and disgusted by the crudity of his fellow American astronauts, who cannot appreciate what he says. He turns on them with tragic consequences, saying “we Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.”

Unfortunately, the other stories lost a lot of momentum for me. There is a lot of filler material here, and it was hard for me to relate to some of the stories. Although I enjoyed “The Fire Balloons,” “Usher II,” and “The Martian,” the other stories that followed were fairly unimpressive.

In particular, I thought “The Silent Towns” was a very sexist and insulting depiction of women, as the last man on Mars finds the last woman on Mars after nuclear war on Earth causes Earth Men to leave Mars. Instead of an Adam and Eve story, he discovers the last woman to be overweight, homely, trivial, and all-around pathetic. Bradbury really does seem to have a condescending attitude towards women, and we can’t just excuse that as being a product of the times. The housewives of Fahrenheit 451 are equally contemptuous, and it’s disappointing to see this in such a beloved writer.

~Stuart Starosta

And here is a “Book Chat” by Bill and Jana:

Hi all. We thought we’d try something a little different around here. When Jana said she was planning on reading The Martian Chronicles , I (Bill) mentioned I’d been thinking lately about rereading some Ray Bradbury and wondered about maybe having a little conversation about the shared experience. Nothing formal, no particular goals or constraints, not a shared review as we’ve done in the past — just a pair of readers bouncing some reactions off each other. 

I would have sworn before starting that I could have described nearly all the stories in The Martian Chronicles , so I was more than a little humbled when only one of the first five (“Ylla”) was at all familiar, and even that one, I shame-facedly admit, called up memories of the 1970s mini-series rather than the actual story (Oh, how disappointing that TV adaptation was — I remember Rock Hudson, his gun and mask, and the rest is a benumbed sense of total dullness). It wasn’t until I reached “The Third Expedition” that I hit a story I had fully remembered going in, though I had thought it was the first in the book.

What surprises me in this early going, besides my lack of memory, is the humor. The poetry, the nostalgia, the sense of sorrow, the inventiveness — all of that was all in my head with regard to Bradbury. But I’d forgotten how playful he could be. Which makes the tragic in all of this — the deaths, the despoiling, etc. — all the more effective and jarring.

Jana: You know, I hadn’t thought about it until you mentioned it, but you’re absolutely right. Even the rhythm of some of the poetry in Bradbury’s inter-chapter vignettes sounds the same to me. There’s nothing wrong with borrowing, subconsciously or otherwise, but I’m sure Steinbeck would have appreciated a little acknowledgement.

I’ve always liked Bradbury’s commentaries on censorship and the fight against it, on the importance of intellectual freedom, on the need for preservation of history and nature. When Spender says, “We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things,” he is the author’s direct mouthpiece, ostensibly speaking about Mars but also referring to man’s encroachment onto green spaces from urban environments. At the time that he was writing that statement, arguing against the infallibility of concepts like Manifest Destiny, I wish he had been as brave or forward-thinking when considering the changing roles of women in American society.

Bradbury’s gender politics bring me much less joy. Every woman in the book is a wife or someone’s wife-to-be, frequently given agency only in relation to her male counterpart. Ylla treats her husband like a father figure, and he condescends to her as though she’s a child. In “The Silent Towns,” when Walter Gripp hears a phone ringing, he assumes that a woman is on the other end of the line because “Only a woman would call and call. A man wouldn’t. A man’s independent.” Rather than play with a reader’s expectations for male/female behavior, Bradbury indulges in the worst aspect of science fiction fans: the exclusion and vilification of women. Genevieve Selsor is a pathetic creature who is fat, sticky from constantly eating chocolates, and desperate for a husband. And we’re supposed to cheer for Walter when he abandons her!

On the whole, I still do enjoy reading The Martian Chronicles . There is tremendous humor, skillful wordplay, and insightful commentary on human nature. If readers keep the book’s historical and literary context in mind, its flaws are understandable and forgivable.

Bill: Well, you hit two of the points I wanted to make, Jana — the fact that this book (and nearly all of Bradbury as I recall it) is science fantasy rather than science fiction and the role of women. And it’s funny how easily I let slide nearly all of the “so they up and built a rocket” kinds of statements, but how difficult it is for me not to wince at so many, many moments involving the women. It always strikes me reading the “old masters” how odd it is that these men can imagine so much unlike their own time — alien races, interstellar travel, time travel, etc. — and yet again and again can not break out of their own time when it comes to gender. Oh, a few authors manage, and some who don’t manage a lot do so now and then, but I’ve always found that aspect fascinating even as yes, I understand they should be judged by their time.

Jana: Exactly! I could go on and on about the really fuzzy science Bradbury employs — he says that it takes about a month for the Third Expedition to travel 50 or 60 million miles to Mars in the year 2000. Even with our modern technology, it would take an expedition anywhere between 150 and 300 days depending so many factors: speed of launch, alignment of Earth and Mars, and resultant length of journey. (According to NASA’s website, the closest possible distance from E to M is 33.9 million miles, but the average is around 139.8 million miles.) So as a reader, I’m supposed to imagine that technology has zoomed ridiculously far ahead of what we’re currently capable of, but society has stagnated in the 1950s…? It’s a small thing, but a big thing, too, because these “old masters” were writing about possible futures without including any of the interesting gender- or race-related issues that were in full percolation at the time of their writing.

Bill: Somewhat in the same vein, though not wholly, I found it interesting that the Kindle version I just downloaded is missing a story, “Way Up in the Air,” relating how all of a town’s black citizens (having up and built a bunch of rockets apparently) are heading to Mars, much to the dismay of many of the white residents, but especially one particularly bigoted one (what will these nightriders do for entertainment in the dark now?). This I find interesting on several levels — one, I’m curious as to why it was removed, especially in the context of a Bradbury work that includes the story “Usher II.” And two, it’s interesting that as with gender, he seems to have not foreseen major changes coming with regard to race, though in this instance the oppressed group takes the initiative to build their own ships and leave, while he doesn’t (if I recall all the stories right) give that same sense of agency to the women in these stories.

Jana: That is interesting! How odd that, of all the stories to remove from that Kindle edition, “Way Up in the Air” was chosen. Since Bradbury specifically addressed censorship in “Usher II,” that’s especially troublesome. In my print edition, “The Fire Balloons” was left out — again, troublesome because of the implications. Apparently it’s fine to read several stories about genocide and destruction of other cultures, but not about missionaries who reach a broader understanding of their universe and faith through contact with other life forms. (The most recent print edition I’ve seen in stores appears to be complete, so that’s a relief.)

To your point about the nonexistent changes regarding race: It’s weird, right? And then that particular oppressed group is never seen again in any of the following stories, leading me to wonder if their rockets did blow up on the way to Mars (as predicted by Sam Teece). Or, more cynically, if the publishing market wasn’t interested in stories about African-Americans on Mars (or women who built and flew their own rockets) because it wouldn’t connect with the magazines’ audience.

It is interesting to speculate about what the reaction of his editors/agents were to those stories.

Jana: They do seem arbitrary, and I genuinely have no idea how anyone comes to those decisions. Perhaps it has something to do with getting the publication rights for each story from the magazine/editor/publishing house they’re registered to? (Be aware that I am displaying my massive ignorance of the publication business, so it’s thoroughly likely that I have no idea to what I’m referring.)

After you’ve described the story to me, I really wish it had been included — even if it isn’t wholly consistent, as you say, it’s a conclusion to the narrative arc for those characters rather than (say it with me now) leaving their fates… up in the air.

Bill : Ouch! And on that (somewhat painful) note, we’ll end our conversation here. Anyone want to jump in, Readers? Any memories of reading  The Martian Chronicles ? Or seeing the TV mini-series? Any thoughts on the presentation of women in these classic works, on the genre of science fantasy or more particular on Bradbury’s own inimitable style? What about the removal of certain stories from later versions of collections? We’d love to hear what you think. And also, again, what you think about this format — would you like to see more of these book “chats”?

KAT HOOPER, who started this site in June 2007, earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience and psychology at Indiana University (Bloomington) and now teaches and conducts brain research at the University of North Florida. When she reads fiction, she wants to encounter new ideas and lots of imagination. She wants to view the world in a different way. She wants to have her mind blown. She loves beautiful language and has no patience for dull prose, vapid romance, or cheesy dialogue. She prefers complex characterization, intriguing plots, and plenty of action. Favorite authors are Jack Vance , Robin Hobb , Kage Baker , William Gibson , Gene Wolfe , Richard Matheson , and C.S. Lewis .

STUART STAROSTA, on our staff from March 2015 to November 2018, is a lifelong SFF reader who makes his living reviewing English translations of Japanese equity research. Despite growing up in beautiful Hawaii, he spent most of his time reading as many SFF books as possible. After getting an MA in Japanese-English translation in Monterey, CA, he lived in Tokyo, Japan for about 15 years before moving to London in 2017 with his wife, daughter, and dog named Lani. Stuart's reading goal is to read as many classic SF novels and Hugo/Nebula winners as possible, David Pringle's 100 Best SF and 100 Best Fantasy Novels, along with newer books & series that are too highly-praised to be ignored. His favorite authors include Philip K Dick , China Mieville , Iain M. Banks , N.K. Jemisin , J.G. Ballard , Lucius Shepard , Neal Stephenson , Kurt Vonnegut , George R.R. Martin , Neil Gaiman , Robert Silverberg , Roger Zelazny , Ursula K. LeGuin , Guy Gavriel Kay , Arthur C. Clarke , H.G. Wells , Olaf Stapledon , J.R.R. Tolkien , Mervyn Peake , etc.

BILL CAPOSSERE, who's been with us since June 2007, lives in Rochester NY, where he is an English adjunct by day and a writer by night. His essays and stories have appeared in Colorado Review, Rosebud, Alaska Quarterly, and other literary journals, along with a few anthologies, and been recognized in the "Notable Essays" section of Best American Essays. His children's work has appeared in several magazines, while his plays have been given stage readings at GEVA Theatre and Bristol Valley Playhouse. When he's not writing, reading, reviewing, or teaching, he can usually be found with his wife and son on the frisbee golf course or the ultimate frisbee field.

JANA NYMAN, with us since January 2015, is a freelance copy-editor who has lived all over the United States, but now makes her home in Colorado with her dog and a Wookiee. Jana was exposed to science fiction and fantasy at an early age, watching Star Wars and Star Trek movie marathons with her family and reading works by Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury WAY before she was old enough to understand them; thus began a lifelong fascination with what it means to be human. Jana enjoys reading all kinds of books, but her particular favorites are fairy- and folktales (old and new), fantasy involving dragons or other mythological beasties, contemporary science fiction, and superhero fiction. Some of her favorite authors are James Tiptree, Jr., Madeleine L'Engle, Ann Leckie, N.K. Jemisin, and Seanan McGuire.

February 27th, 2015. Kat Hooper , Stuart Starosta , Bill Capossere and Jana Nyman ´s rating: 4 | Ray Bradbury | SFF Reviews | 15 comments |

15 Comments

This was fun, Bill and Jana!

I too am so amazed that the male SF writers of the early 20th century foresaw so many technological developments (that we haven’t even reached yet) and essential zero cultural developments. I would guess that they just saw that sort of sex- and class-based society as the “natural order” and assumed it wasn’t going to change. It would be interesting to ask one of them (who’s still alive) about this.

(Readers who need a reminder about what each of the Martian Chronicles stories is about could check out my review. I’ve mentioned a little about the plot of all of them, I think.)

How bizarre that some stories are missing in the different editions. I wonder if there is a difference in opinion about which stories belong? I know that there have been reprints that have changed the stories by updating the years, so maybe you’re reading two different versions of the collection.

Did your versions contain “There Will Come Soft Rains”? I loved that story.

Your review of The Martian Chronicles was thorough for each story, Kat, which is how I figured out that my copy incomplete. Also, my copy contained most of “There Will Come Soft Rains” — the last few paragraphs were cut off, which is a shame, because it’s a lovely story.

The read-together was a lot of fun, and Bill and I already talking about what to read for next month. Current front-runner is Something Wicked This Way Comes, in case anyone’s interested!

Mine had “There Will Come Soft Rains” as well. I can still recall reading that story in a seventh or eight grade anthology–loved it then, love it now.

I love this format, but I find the discovery both of you make that neither print copies nor electronic copies contain the complete collection. I love that Bill asks “Who is making these decisions?” I would love to know the answer to that. I’m not being snarky. I am genuinely interested in what kind of pruning is going on as 21st century mores are applied to this 20th century work.

Thank you both for engaging in this discussion! I hope we do more of these.

This is a really cool idea! I’d love to see more of these.

I share a lot of your reactions. “Usher II” was fun, but there was no need for it to be set on Mars. And I agree about “The Silent Towns,” although the beginning had a good depiction of a sense of isolation.

Sorry Stuart, but gotta disagree with you on this one, too. :)

What makes Bradbury so great is the humanity inherent to his stories. I won’t argue the hokie Midwestern thing; there are certainly some outdated elements of the collection. But I think the fact his science fiction elements play second fiddle (how’s that for a hokie idiom?) to the human elements is not something to brush aside. Like John Steinbeck, who won the Nobel for a very similar style of literature (sans Martians, of course :), I think if you look through the anachronistic exterior of The Martian Chronicles you’ll find some enduring ideas.

But the point I think I would contend with most is Bradbury’s portrayal of women. I don’t know if there’s enough of a common theme in The Martian Chronicles to judge the collection mysogynistic. But certainly the portrayal of Mildred in Fahrenheit 451 is intended to go beyond such a simple woman good/bad reading. Her character representative of the decay of American culture and the negative influence of commercialism, she, in fact, is the real heart of the novel, and not Montag’s book burning. Were Bradbury to have portrayed that idea through Montag, would you have called him a man hater?

I like the fact that contemporary culture has made us sensitive to the manner in which women are portrayed in fiction, but I can’t help but wonder if sometimes we (myself included) are too sensitive. If every female need be portrayed as kind, loving, emotionally troubled but well-intended, blah blah blah, I think we would be preventing ourselves from seeing certain colors, as dark as they may be, from the rainbow of humanity in the fiction we appreciate. Is Mildred a realistic portrayal of a person, I think more yes than no, and for this we shouldn’t criticize Bradbury strictly along gender lines.

Hi Jesse, I’m happy to hear dissenting opinions, especially on Bradbury! It’s better than no response at all. I stand by my criticism of the hokey Midwestern characters of Martian Chronicles, as they were pervasive throughout the collection. True, there were enduring humanistic undercurrents that ran through the book (the first few stories were excellent), but the “Mayberry on Mars” theme got irritating in the later stories. Can Bradbury do anything other than nostalgia for a simpler time? It doesn’t seem that way judging by the 4 books I read (Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes), but I haven’t read his numerous short stories. And finally, I didn’t see Mildred as a 3-dimensional person. Other than the brief appearance of Clarisse at the beginning, every female character in 451 is shallow, hysterical, and mind-numbed by the invasive entertainment wall. In contrast, Montag and Beatty are strong, intelligent, emotionally-complex characters. So yes, I don’t feel that Bradbury gives female characters much depth. That’s not misogyny, it’s just a failing of him as a writer (and he has many strengths, no question).

The litmus test I often use is: have I ever met such a person, and in the case of Mildred, and her friends, I think I have. More to the point, is it so strange that a person whose life revolves around daytime television would have a personality as vacuous – as two-dimensional? I agree Bradbury’s portrayal of women is not the cutting edge of feminism. But at the same time, do I think Bradbury went out of his way to be “condescending” and “contemptuous”? I don’t know… I admit it’s been a while since I read The Martian Chronicles, but memory tells me the first story features a visionary Martian woman who must deal with the jealousy, irrationality, and violence of her husband. And I may be mistaken, but I think the point of the last-man-on-Mars story was not how ugly the woman was, but how shallow the man was for placing his own desires ahead of the species’ – not a flattering statement about testosterone, either.

I don’t know. I see your point, and I agree Bradbury should remain accountable for being a product of his times. But at the same time, I don’t think Bradbury was intentionally malevolent toward women – certainly nothing to warrant being described as “contemptuous”… Those types of words should be attached to Vox Day.

I concede “contemptuous” is probably too strong a word (though not enough for Vox Day). I do encourage you to read Martian Chronicles again. In every case, even that of Ylla (who we can sympathize with as the victim of a jealous husband), the female characters are invariably secondary, passive, and not in control of their lives (such as “The Wilderness”, in which two women ponder their fates on Mars as they follow their men like pioneer women). I think you might also re-assess “The Silent Towns”, since it’s all about “looking for where a woman would most likely be”, which is the beauty salon, and Genevieve is busy stuffing her face with chocolates and blathering on so it’s hard to feel any respect for her. Believe me, I don’t go into SF classic with the agenda of hunting down sexism, since I understand that was part of the times, but since we are talking about the universality of the themes Bradbury introduces, it seems a waste that his sympathies mainly reside with pensive Midwestern men and their stalwart but uncomplaining wives.

Now that you make me think about it, it seems I do need to go back and read the collection as there were some things I missed. But I still think you miss the point about “The Silent Towns”. It’s not only about looking for a woman. It’s also about mankind missing its last chance to continue the species because of one man’s idiocy. Had the man discovered that the ‘last woman on Mars’ was average looking, working a mid-level accountancy job in a bank (i.e. an everyday, normal person), he probably wouldn’t have had the reaction he did, and therefore the story would have fallen flat. We’re meant to be critiquing the man for his inability to get over his own shallow need for attraction – that he chose no woman over a woman when the fate of mankind hung in the balance. The woman is the plot device which exposes the human element in need of criticizing/correction. Yes, Bradbury could have accomplished this differently, but were the roles reversed (a woman finding a slovenly man at the other end of the phone, instead), would you be as critical of Bradbury?

“And there he sat at the bar, swilling beer, ass crack hanging out of his pants, swearing and blathering on about who will win the football championship this weekend…” I think you’d laugh. :)

The fact that Bradbury chose two fallible people for a story of humanity in dire straights, rather than a superficial Ken and Barbie tale of heroism and romance, is something to be commended rather than critiqued, I think.

Hmmm, we definitely interpreted “The Silent Towns” in opposite ways. That’s the fascinating part about fiction, isn’t it? Anyway, I do like the idea of switching the roles and having the man be the uncouth goon that the woman couldn’t stand. Maybe we need to “update” the book to fit modern social standards?

I’m loving this discussion of “The Silent Towns!” I guess the story is successful because it works through either lens.

Absolutely agree. And I feel the same about most of Bradbury’s work. Meh. I never felt like I learned anything from reading his books. To be fair, reading about people that never find any sort of solution and just essentially fade away (or quit or whatever) feels like just a waste of my oh-so valuable time. I prefer (or my “shtick” is) to learn something from a book, rather than just be entertained. I can (and do) drink booze and entertain myself with the silliness in my own head but the effect remains the same as an entertaining book. Time wasted. I will even read a book (or re-read a book) if the protagonists are even trying but still fail to find a solution. Lots of points for trying. After all, imho, life is about an ultimate solution, and the search. There are a few who have found solutions (and they may not be right for you and me) but I love to read about their searches and their solutions. (I realize this type of approach is part of a very, very small percentage of readers.) Authors who I do enjoy reading for their characters’ searches are Brin, Dan Simmons, Tepper, De Lint, Crowley, Heinlein. I even like Feist, Chalker, and Eddings for both entertainment and (eventually) searching. Have fun reading!

I first read this in the 60s but it was by no means my first SFF read. I did not know then that Bradbury did not regard Martian Chronicles as Science Fiction but I would have agreed. Bradbury knowingly put huge scientific inaccuracies in the collection of stories in order to create a great allegory.

My personal favorite is There Will Come Soft Rains which could by itself be a true SF story. We just about now have the technology to implement it. But I can’t imagine a system not having the sensors and the code to not detect the absence of people. LOL

Ray said that Fahrenheit 451 was his only SF novel but I don’t like it as much as MC.

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Literary Fictions

Short Stories, Reviews and Vintage Miscellany

The Martian Chronicles ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Martian Chronicles ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

The Martian Chronicles , by Ray Bradbury, was first published in 1950 and is set in a future time in the early 21 st century, a time that we have now exceeded and passed. It is a collection of interrelated short stories that are almost but not quite a novel. The stories are all set on the planet Mars and are about earth people traveling to Mars, living on Mars and trying to survive on Mars. Mars may be the one planet in our solar system that is most like earth but, as the people in the book discover, living on Mars is not quite the same as living on earth.

In The Martian Chronicles , tens of thousands of people from earth are traveling to Mars because—you guessed it—mankind has defiled and annihilated earth and, for people to go on living, they must find a new planetary home. Mars, as we see it, is an eerie, lonely planet, with dried-up oceans, deserts and canals, and remnants of Martian cities that are thousands of years old.

Earth people on Mars, as you might imagine, are not good for Mars. They set about destroying Mars the same way they destroy earth and there’s nobody to stop them. The once-proud Martian race has all but died by the time the bulk of earth people arrive. There may be a few Martians still living, but they keep themselves hidden in the hills and are rarely seen.

The stories in The Martian Chronicles are divided into three parts. The first part is about the attempts of men from earth to reach Mars and the methods Martians use to keep them away. In the second part, humans from earth set about colonizing Mars, having all but wiped out the Martians with earth diseases, and are preoccupied with making Mars as much like earth as they can. However, as earth is about to be destroyed in a nuclear war, most of the earth colonists on Mars pack up and return home. The third part deals with the aftermath of the destructive war on earth and the few earth people still remaining who will become the new Martians because earth is gone and they have no place to return to.

The Martian Chronicles is intelligent, inventive and engaging, with just a touch of creepiness to enlighten the proceedings, as when an inventor, whose wife and children have died on Mars, makes look-alike robots to replace them, or when the Martians eliminate one of the expeditions from earth by using telepathy to make the men of the expedition think their long-dead relatives are alive and well on Mars. It’s classic sci-fi fantasy as only Ray Bradbury can do it.

Copyright © 2019 by Allen Kopp

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The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury | 4.32 | 208,300 ratings and reviews

Ranked #3 in Mars , Ranked #15 in Short Stories — see more rankings .

Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The Martian Chronicles from the world's leading experts.

Orson Scott Card Author This is language that is meant, like ancient Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse, to be read aloud. It contains its own music. It is music. (Source)

Rankings by Category

The Martian Chronicles is ranked in the following categories:

• #51 in Aliens
• #89 in American
• #23 in Classic Sci-Fi
• #86 in Collection
• #97 in Exploration
• #68 in Futurism
• #81 in Leather Bound
• #34 in Podcast
• #50 in Sci-Fi Horror
• #31 in Science Fiction
• #47 in Science Fiction Fantasy
• #26 in Short
• #37 in Space
• #50 in Story
• #58 in Syfy
• #99 in Used

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The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

"We earth men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things."

This brilliant collection of science fiction short stories combines elements of humour and tragedy to show us how much man must learn, as such a very dim view of human society is evoked in these pages. Before he enters the world of the Martian, he has a lot of developing to do. 

Bradbury suggests that Martian culture has transcended its human counterpart; the Martians have accepted an almost animalistic ethos in which they live for the simple sake of existence. They do not question religion or science; they blend the two together in a display of cultural harmony. However, the brutish man is too limited to do this and as a result has lost all sense of himself. The image of the Martian way of life is captured in the serene beauty of their cities, which is juxtaposed against the humans incessant trespassing on foreign soil. He is the invader, the unwelcome guest. 

For centuries man has dreamed about going to Mars. He has finally achieved this monumental feat, and when he arrived, he expected to be greeted as a hero: he expected to be greeted with open arms by the Martians. But, alas, the Martians have a very different opinion to the aliens that invaded their planet. They have a funny and very realistic response to the intruders. They raise their laser pistols and get ready to fire. The humans could not comprehend that perhaps the aliens may be different to themselves; they didn’t consider that their so-called expeditions could be received so negatively.

"It is good to renew one's wonder, said the philosopher. Space travel has again made children of us all."

Indeed, the children (man) did not stop to think about what he was doing: he simply rushed in and expected the best. He ignorantly presumed that he wouldn’t be received as a threat and an invader that needed to be fought off. Time and time again man repeats his mistakes, and, for me, this formed the main motif of this collection of short stories. Humanity never learns. The repeated expeditions into the unknown only ended in disaster, first for the humans and then eventually for the Martian people. 

In these stories Bradbury questions human existence and the futility of its explorations. They each carry a powerful moral message. By drawing the parallel between human and Martian culture, Bradbury captures how flawed human aspirations are. Humans will never be fulfilled and complete. They are harboured by a perpetual longing to have more than what they need. The continuous visits to Mars symbolise this. Earth is not enough for man, he wants Mars too in his folly. Bradbury’s stories suggest that he needs to take a step back before he ruins something beautiful. 

This is a great collection of science fiction stories that, together, speak louder than they do alone. Whilst each is individual, they are, of course, meant to be read as a collection. This provides a comment of the nature of man, and a highly entertaining reading experience. These are some of Ray Bradbury’s finest short stories, don’t miss them! 

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Review by Sean Barrs

Bill from United States

Great book. It's a classic and to say that Ray Bradbury is a good writer is an understatement. The way the author combines themes of human condition and humor is undoubtedly a work of art. The story itself has a very iconic plot involving the exploration of Mars by humans, but results in conflict among the Martians who have already claimed the planet as their home.

9 /10 from 2 reviews

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Review “the martian chronicles” by ray bradbury (published 1950).

“The Martian Chronicles” is what is known as a ‘fixup’ novel ie a novel comprised of a series of short stories that were originally written and published separately. (Apparently Bradbury was surprised when it was suggested to him that he had, in fact, already written a novel, he just had to put it together.) The story follows the exploration and colonisation of Mars by people from Earth, starting with some unsuccessful expeditions and eventually ending in the colonisation of the planet, and a dead (or mostly dead) Martian civilization that came before.

World building of Martian civilization and architecture is interesting. These stories were written before any Martian expeditions, and some suspension of disbelief is needed re such things as Martian ‘canals’ and a breathable atmosphere.

They had a house of crystal pillars on the planet Mars by the edge of an empty sea … eating the golden fruits that grew from the crystal walls, or cleaning the house with handfuls of magnetic dust which, taking all dirt with it, blew away on the hot wind.

Less interesting is that gender stereotypes and divisions are very pronounced here and that includes the Martians. Bradbury wrote these a long time ago, of course, and these kinds of ideas are to be expected. Whether or not the irony of Martian behaviour was intentional, it is darkly amusing that the first manned expedition to Mars is murdered by a Martian male who is jealous of his wife’s dream. (How very human of him.) Most of the descriptions of Martian behaviour and thought is no different from humans, which is a flaw. Even their assumptions about life on other planets is the same:

 “Do you ever wonder if – well, if there are people living on the third planet?”

“The third planet is incapable of supporting life,” stated the husband patiently. “Our scientists have said there’s far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.”

The only really interesting aspect of the Martian people is that they have telepathy. It appears to be a group telepathy, which is very relevant to the fate of the second and third Martian expeditions. Again, the second expedition being assumed to be insane Martians is dark comedy, and, just like humans, the Martians cannot conceive that they might be wrong about their assumptions.

But by the time of the fourth expedition, humans find that most of the Martians are dead. It is only at this point that the reader discovers the Martian population has been in decline for a long time, as many of the cities have obviously been deserted for hundreds or thousands of years. However some cities are full of dead Martians, and it is discovered they died from chickenpox. Bradbury has used the deaths on the American continent from smallpox when the Spanish first went there, an apt reminder that, in spite of our having wiped out diseases, they are dormant in our system and potentially could kill someone who had never been exposed, however mild (the common cold, for example.) Again, the expedition runs into trouble, this time from one of their own. He has translated and read Martian books (he says) and insists they were better. He doesn’t want humans to ruin their world. I find this an interesting incident as the interactions with the Martians have not shown them to be peace-loving or superior. If an alien came to our civilization after we are gone, and read some poetry or profound writing, would they imagine we are superior from that? How wrong they would be.

The stories depicting the colonization are making comment on how people go to new places but want them to be just the same. The towns that humans build are identical to what they have at home. They construct them the same, they eat the same food, they dress the same, they act the same. Nothing changes except the location. This is like people who emigrate to new places but construct miniature versions of their homes when they are there. European ‘ex-pats’ living in Africa or South America are depicted in fiction as constructing replicas of home and complaining about ‘native’ attitudes. Emigrants from one country to another live in the same way as they are used to, hence ‘Chinatown’, ‘Little Italy’ etc. People may be running from things they hate, but they end up taking those things with them. They struggle to change.

This is juxtaposed with the descriptions of the dead Martian cities, alien and completely intact, but empty. There is a sense of desolation and sorrow in the descriptions of the empty spaces:

… it was like entering a vast open library or a mausoleum in which the wind lives and over which the stars shone … He wondered where the people had gone, what they had been, and who their kings were, and how they had died.

There is a horror story in the middle of this book, called “Usher 2”, which in my opinion does not really fit with the rest of the narrative. However, it’s a great story in its own right. The main character has a house built on Mars that is a replica of the house of Usher. The protagonist, Stendahl, is a great fan of Edgar Allan Poe, and the reader learns that laws have been passed prohibiting books and imaginary constructs of any kind. He is visited by an investigator from ‘Moral Climates’, who are in charge of enforcing these rules, and who says that the house will be demolished. The story progresses as Stendahl gets the best of all the ‘Moral Climates’ people in the ultimate Poe homage. As I say, it doesn’t seem to fit within the narrative, but on its own it’s a fun story, especially if you’re a Poe fan.

When the Martian apparitions appear to a human character and give him a deed to Mars, I cannot but wonder if they were being ironic, that they knew Earth was about to destroy itself. Their gift to the man is basically a way of saying ‘enjoy our dead world, your world’s about to be dead too’. It’s a little hard to work out their motivation, but it seems backhanded to me.

The story “Night Meeting” is in my opinion a pivotal story in the book. In it a man travelling across the desert meets a Martian. The two have a conversation, in which they discover that the Martian is seeing a Mars fully populate by his own people and the human is, of course, not. Therefore they conclude they are talking across time somehow. What is interesting, though, is that the Martian states confidently that the human must be from the past, and when the human says, no, I’m from the future, your race is dead, the Martian does not believe him. Is this because the Martian does not want to believe his race is doomed to die out? Maybe, but on the other hand, who is to say that the world the Martian sees is not some future world, a new civilization down the track.

This has a tie-in to the final story, “The Million-Year Picnic”, where a man and his family go to live in one of the old Martian cities after Earth is destroyed. The man burns papers representing Earth and tells his children that Earth’s way of life was wrong as shown by its self-destruction. He takes the children to a canal and tells them to look in the water at their reflections and tells them that these are the Martians. So has time come full circle? Was the Martian encountered in the desert in the earlier story from the dead past, or a hopeful future? It is certainly an interesting possibility.

The Martians were there – in the canal – reflected in the water. Timothy and Michael and Robert and Mum and Dad.

The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water …

“The Martian Chronicles” is an entertaining series of stories about a journey, of Earth people to Mars, of Martians to their extinction, of old ways to new ways. I think it is best read in that light, about people holding on to old habits, and in the end having to release them for new ways of thinking and living. Unlike much science fiction of that period, it spends less time on hardware and things, and more time on people and ideas. I strongly recommend it to any lovers of science fiction.

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Teen Book Review: The Martian Chronicles

The first book to interest me in the science fiction genre, and a compelling read, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury is set in a fictional world where humans colonize Mars. The book is a collection of several short interconnected short stories, with time jumps between each. Starting with perspective of the first mission of humans to reach Mars, and ending with the last few people left on Mars, this story is full of masterful twists, leaving you question what is real, and what is inside of the characters heads. A true page-turner, and short enough to keep you interested, The Martian Chronicles is well worth the read.

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Views from the electronic bell tower, the martian chronicles: a book review.

The Martian Chronicles is set in the 1990’s through 2026 when several groups of astronauts are sent to Mars and find surprisingly familiar faces there.   The Martian Chronicles is a group of stories all tied in someway to the previous story. Ray Bradbury’s writing style resounds through all of his books as a slightly creepy and very opinionated writer.   He is known as the best or one of the best Science fiction writers in history.

The Martian Chronicles has many aspects to it which make it a very unsettling book, but in others it makes the reader think about some very intense subjects.   The book is in some ways creepy. For example, in one story the main characters find people such as their brothers, friends and many other familiar faces on Mars but convince themselves they are not real because there is no way they could be on Mars.   Bradbury uses the familiar faces to symbolize the loneliness of the first few characters and in a way the loneliness of himself, because even though Bradbury’s characters are surrounded by familiar faces they know deep down inside they are just figments of the imagination.

Martian Chronicles is an odd book to read because it was written nearly 70 years ago, and it is set generally in our time.   This usually would not be so odd if it were not for the facts that we do not have anywhere close to the technology it would take of travel to Mars, and eleven years ago we were still getting over the aftershock of traveling to the moon. Additionally, it has scientifically been proven that there is nowhere near enough oxygen on Mars to sustain any life at all.

Bradbury seemed to take a liking to killing people off in this book because he went through four groups of main characters before he stuck with one.   By killing the main characters off he did not allow the reader to get attached to the main characters, which he most likely wanted to do so the reader would be caught up in the meanings and historical significances of the story.   He also killed the main characters off so he could express his different views on some very important subjects and introduce new ones.

The Martian Chronicles has many meanings in it and Bradbury is not shy in expressing them.   He uses the various main characters in the book to express his feelings such as the point that we are ruining our world, and will likely ruin Mars also. Later in the same story, he is reinforcing this idea when one of the characters exclaims “self control” and continues to argue with himself for chapters on end.   By saying this, Bradbury is making the point that humans don’t have the ability to withstand temptation, and will continue destroying the Earth.

The Martian Chronicles is an A list book because it is over sixty years old and its expiration date has not run its course yet. It has many famous quotes in it. The meanings in the book are centuries old even if the book is only sixty.   The book leaves thoughts in the readers head such as “what purpose do I have in the world?” It gets people to go out and do something and every A list book should do that.   It is also an A list book because of its obvious superiority over the many other science fiction books at that time.   The book has deeper meanings such as the points this review has expressed.   Many of the books written at the time that The Martian Chronicles were written were just about science fiction future technology but Bradbury finds the deeper meaning for all the technology and the science which is why The Martian Chronicles is an A list book.

About a third of the way through the book the third group of astronauts is sent to Mars and Bradbury exclaims, “They came because they were afraid or unafraid, happy or unhappy.   There was a reason for each man.   They were coming to find something or get something, or to dig up something or bury something.  They were coming with small dreams or big dreams or none at all.   The first men were few, but grew steadily.   There was comfort in numbers.   But the first Lonely Ones had to stand alone.” This is a very universal idea.  If the reader thinks about it; it applies to every thing from scientific ideas to new sports.   The most universal idea in this quote is at the end. “Everyone stands alone at one time or another in their life and we all catch the very contagious disease of loneliness.”

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The Martian Chronicles

In Matthew Shindell’s “For the Love of Mars,” perceptions of the planet reflect the changing culture of Earth.

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FOR THE LOVE OF MARS: A Human History of the Red Planet, by Matthew Shindell

When we trace it back to its etymological origins, a planet is, literally, a wanderer — a point of light that strays. Usually, it moves in the same direction as the stars, but sometimes it halts and reverses course. This retrograde motion, which occurs when Earth overtakes a planet in its orbit, is hard to square with a geocentric model of the universe, but it was full of meaning for cultures that looked to the heavens for messages. The systems of knowledge that slowly evolved into the natural sciences arose from the study of omens, abundantly provided by the planets.

Apart from Earth, no planet has received more attention than Mars, where this apparent wandering is the most pronounced. As Matthew Shindell notes in “For the Love of Mars,” however, this wasn’t always the case. For most of history, Mars — a less spectacular object in the sky than Venus — was rarely singled out for special consideration, and we learned to love it only after the invention of the telescope. Observations by European astronomers, which coincided with printed accounts of the New World, encouraged people to see Mars for the first time as a place that might be visited one day.

Shindell, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum, describes his book as “the history of human ideas about Mars,” and he thoughtfully follows its winding path through religion, literature and pop culture. In the prologue, he explains that he initially conceived the project as just one chapter in a general study of Mars exploration, and he occasionally strains to justify the expansion. The first chapter is devoted to societies — including ancient Babylon and the Han dynasty — that were interested in Mars as merely one cog in “the cosmic state,” which searches the sky for endorsements of the ruling class.

The story gains momentum in the Scientific Revolution. Shindell glances, perhaps too briefly, at Johannes Kepler, the first scientist to make a major discovery — the elliptical orbits of the planets — by analyzing Mars specifically. In the 19th century, astronomers identified networks of lines on its surface that were taken by many as evidence of an alien civilization.

Shindell writes that the Martian “canals” were exposed as an optical illusion, but he misses the chance to recount one of the more charming experiments in the history of science. When schoolboys were told to copy a model of Mars that was hung in the classroom, students in the front row produced accurate drawings, while those toward the back connected real features with imaginary lines.

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The Martian Chronicles Reprint Edition, Kindle Edition

Mars was a distant shore, and the men spread upon it in waves... Each wave different, and each wave stronger.

The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury is a storyteller without peer, a poet of the possible, and, indisputably, one of America's most beloved authors. In a much celebrated literary career that has spanned six decades, he has produced an astonishing body of work: unforgettable novels, including Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes; essays, theatrical works, screenplays and teleplays; The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, The October Country, and numerous other superb short story collections. But of all the dazzling stars in the vast Bradbury universe, none shines more luminous than these masterful chronicles of Earth's settlement of the fourth world from the sun.

Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams and metaphor-of crystal pillars and fossil seas-where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn -first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars ... and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is a classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time's passage. In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster once again enthralls, delights and challenges us with his vision and his heart-starkly and stunningly exposing in brilliant spacelight our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.

• ISBN-13 978-0062079930
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• Publisher William Morrow Paperbacks
• Publication date May 21, 2013
• Language English
• File size 1049 KB
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Bradbury's quiet exploration of a future that looks so much like the past is sprinkled with lighter material. In "The Silent Towns," the last man on Mars hears the phone ring and ends up on a comical blind date. But in most of these stories, Bradbury holds up a mirror to humanity that reflects a shameful treatment of "the other," yielding, time after time, a harvest of loneliness and isolation. Yet the collection ends with hope for renewal, as a colonist family turns away from the demise of the Earth towards a new future on Mars. Bradbury is a master fantasist and The Martian Chronicles are an unforgettable work of art. --Blaise Selby

From the Inside Flap

From the back cover, about the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., from audiofile, product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00CKOQC9C
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (May 21, 2013)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 21, 2013
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 1049 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 298 pages
• #13 in Classic Fiction Anthologies & Collections
• #61 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Kindle Store)
• #193 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Books)

About the author

Ray bradbury.

In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury, who died on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91, inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screen play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. He was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, among many honors.

Throughout his life, Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932. At the end of his performance Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, "Live forever!" Bradbury later said, "I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped."

Customer reviews

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 66% 22% 9% 2% 2% 66%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 66% 22% 9% 2% 2% 22%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 66% 22% 9% 2% 2% 9%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 66% 22% 9% 2% 2% 2%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 66% 22% 9% 2% 2% 2%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

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Customers say

Customers find the book well-written, easy to get into, and entertaining. They also appreciate the beautiful visuals and humor. Readers describe the plot as wonderful, anachronistic, and terrifying. They appreciate the insightful commentary and originality. They describe the emotional tone as poignant, hopeful, and awesome.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the plot wonderful, providing a good variety of interpersonal relationships. They also appreciate that each chapter is a separate short story that connects in a deep way. Readers describe the book as a great example of science fiction at its best. They find it easy to get into, addictive, and thought-provoking.

"...It's easy to get into and addicting , a very interesting concept, delightfully ironic, a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful..." Read more

"...However, I would still recommend it. It's thought-provoking and terrifying , and even though Bradbury's mythical depiction of Mars looks nothing like..." Read more

"...I can't remember it's title. Great tale !Always a good read." Read more

"...And Bradbury's Martian Chronicles is a great example of science fiction at its best." Read more

Customers find the book well-written, lyrical, and imaginative. They also say it's easy to get into and addicting.

"...It's easy to get into and addicting, a very interesting concept, delightfully ironic, a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful..." Read more

"Ray Bradbury is a wonderful writer . Like Aldous Huxley told him Bradbury is a poet...." Read more

"... Bradbury writes true literature , and often has the voice of a poet...." Read more

"...In story after story, Bradbury writes in simple , almost quaint language, but does so in a way that communicates to the reader his trepidation and..." Read more

Customers find the book wonderful at evoking the imagination. They also say it's an amazing book dealing with humanity, loneliness, and desire for exploration. Readers also mention that the book is brilliant in a simplistic way.

"...It's easy to get into and addicting, a very interesting concept , delightfully ironic, a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful..." Read more

"...However, I would still recommend it. It's thought-provoking and terrifying, and even though Bradbury's mythical depiction of Mars looks nothing like..." Read more

"...Martian Chronicles is a work of wonderful imagination which holds up well all these years after it was written...." Read more

"...Martian Chronicles is a fun and inventive read and a wonderful trip through the imagination of one of the best in the business...." Read more

Customers find the book's content masterful, insightful, and relevant. They also say the message is very true, and they're struck by its prescience and insight. Readers describe the author as remarkable and generous.

"...chapter/short story is different: some expository, some humorous, some scientific , some bittersweet, some about Martians, some about humans...." Read more

"...In each individual story, it’s a quiet, subtle thing , like a warning he’s sending out that he doesn’t really believe will be heeded...." Read more

"...and I ran across a long Wikipedia article on him, chock full of interesting things I did not know, including this quote attributed to Bradbury: “..." Read more

"...But I found it to be disjointed, awkward, not convincing in any manner ...." Read more

Customers find the fantasy elements in the book entertaining, enchanting, and exciting. They also say the book rekindles the excitement of reading it 30 years ago.

"...: surreal yet suburban, science-fiction but relevant, ironic, enjoyable , bittersweet, and all in all a good book. I recommend it...." Read more

"...The Martian Chronicles is a fun and inventive read and a wonderful trip through the imagination of one of the best in the business...." Read more

"This book was very fun to read ...." Read more

"...man on the planet meeting the last woman on the planet, I found truly hilarious ...." Read more

Customers find the book poignant, full of wonder and sadness, with an infusion of hope at the end. They also appreciate the rich imagination and fine sensitivity to the human psyche. Readers also mention the technical detail and suspense were awesome, and the story provides just enough information and graphic description.

"...delightfully ironic, a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful. I enjoy this book and have read it a few times myself...." Read more

"...to walk away feeling depressed, but Bradbury managed an infusion of hope at the end ...." Read more

"...Sad and brutal but always full of hopes and dreams . RIP Ray Bradbury. I love your books." Read more

"...Although it is bleak, there are moments of humor, and glints of hope ...." Read more

Customers find the visuals of the book beautiful, suspenseful, and dark. They also appreciate the formatting and layout.

"...in mind, I said to myself "Yes, pure poetry (prose actually) and it is beautiful ." I love his writing!!!..." Read more

"...The imagery of the river is beautiful .This one story makes it worthwhile to buy this particular edition of the book...." Read more

"...There’s human beauty and ugliness , fully fleshed aliens and an alien world effortlessly conveyed into our vivid imaginations, satire and broad..." Read more

"...But the style was just too contrived . Sorry, I know there are plenty of Bradbury fans who would disagree..." Read more

Customers find the humor in the book different, with some expository, humorous, tragic, and poignant. They also say it's an excellent parody on colonization.

"...It's easy to get into and addicting, a very interesting concept, delightfully ironic , a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful..." Read more

"...Things occasionally get deep, humorous or scary (the Martians give off Lovecraftian vibes in a few places), but remain focused on the behavior of..." Read more

"...Although it is bleak, there are moments of humor , and glints of hope...." Read more

"...It was very weird and the people don't make sense." Read more

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