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

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.

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

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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Maravilloso. Más que cuentos son relatos muy breves, viñetas en algunos casos de una única página, de una hipotética colonización de Marte.
Mis favoritos: "Usher II" (con referencias a otro favorito, Edgar Allan Poe), "And the Moon be still as bright", y "There will come soft rains".
A pesar del tono melancólico y pesimista de los relatos, me dejó una sensación de calidez y esperanza.

ALL HAIL RAY BRADBURY, KING OF STORYTELLING!

‘What does it matter who is Past or Future, if we are both alive, for what follows will follow, tomorrow or in ten thousand years.’

Seriously, so far i adored everything i’ve read from this man. Even if dandelion wine was not the masterpiece I hoped it would i still loved his writing there. I need to revisit it soon because I’m sure it needs a second chance!

As for this, I devoured it in a single day. As I started reading I figured out that it’s actually many standalone stories gathered making one magical book with a very interesting premise. Colonization of Mars. These stories discover so much more than just that. He is writing the first dangerous attempts of the explorers, how people approach new worlds and different landscapes. How humans deal with new threads and problems. Can humans change?

Bradbury can get very poetic and here he excels doing it. This novel is meant to come as poetic. Whether you think the "poetry" is good or bad, it cannot be denied that, for a novel about outer space, Bradbury pays a huge amount of attention to physical beauty, to family bonds, and to eerie, chilling atmosphere.

There's not a lot more to add to all the positive reviews already here. I too found this book thought provoking, provocative, profound. It's an inspiring piece of work; there is a reason why this is a classic.

Some people criticize the science. However, Mr. Bradbury himself admitted that this was more a work of Fantasy than Sci-Fi. Who am I to argue?

The book concerns the colonization of Mars and the implications on both Humans and, yes, Martians. At this stage in time, I suppose it reads more like an “alternate history” book, considering some of the dates involved.

The prose is lyrical, and haunting at times, i.e. typical for the author. Whilst essentially a series of short stories strung together, it actually flows pretty good, and everybody should enjoy peeling away the layers of meaning.

It's more than just an adventure, it's a chronicle, of what makes us tick. Am I reading too much into it? Perhaps. Read it. Own it. You should.

P.S. 1 - Again: cover art by Michael Whelan. Fantastic stuff!

P.S. 2 - Review transferred from my Amazon account - slightly edited

I read this so very long ago, decades, almost into the Martian past, the past of the book.

It's part of me in ways I feel, but can see only in glimpses. Bradbury was the father of my intellect and my imagination in so many ways, along with Heinlein and Clarke and Asimov.

And my dreams are coloured by theirs.

Exquisite.

Ray Bradbury's writing is literally flawless.

4.5 Stars
I really enjoyed reading this iconic piece of science fiction. As a classic, I found the writing to be very accessible. The story jumped forward in time with each chapter, reading like short stories, yet the overarching narrative was easy to follow. The story started out quite satirical and almost cute as we followed the initial expeditions to mars. Eventually, the story took a darker turn, exposing the flaws and failings of humanity through themes of consumption and colonization. This is the kind of book I could see myself appreciating more when I reread it.

When Ray Bradbury published this book in 1950, the best photographs of Mars were blurry orange blobs, showing little of the planet's features. Not much was known about it, leaving a lot of room for speculation.

Is there life on this red planet? If so, is it intelligent? What if we could move there?

The Martian Chronicles is a series of short, fantastical stories of people who move to Mars. If you like short stories and don't need science in your sci-fi, you might like this more than I did.

For me, it's 2.5 stars. I'm not a fan of short stories but I enjoyed two of these and I like that the last two tied the rest (somewhat) together.

However, as always with story collections, I'm left with a big ol' But what's the point?!.

I don't like to get interested in something only for it to abruptly end and I'm left hanging in mid air.



Another bitch is that it's not scientifically accurate because humans can't just move to Mars and live as we do on Earth. Also, in this book, humans were carting all sorts of things out to Mars, without a care for the extreme expense and energy to get all those material goods out of Earth's gravity field.

It was amusing how Bradbury saw humans treating Mars with as little regard as we do Earth, and the Americans trying to recreate America, importing democracy along with cars, houses, and hot dog stands.

However, a little wit in some of the stories isn't enough to salvage this one, not with all its inaccuracies, lack of science, and the pointlessness (for me) of short stories.

Since Ray Bradbury passed away (about a month ago at the time of writing) it occurred to me to reread his books that I have read before, and read the others that I have missed. After rereading Something Wicked This Way Comes last month I thought I'd read Fahrenheit 451 but as it turned out The Reddit SF Book Club chose The Martian Chronicles as book of the month (July 2012) so in order to keep up with the Joneses here we are! How about that for a useless intro?

This book is a fix-up novel which is something between an anthology and a novel, and it benefits from both of its sibling formats. The stories are interrelated with only a few recurring characters but read together the whole is certainly greater than the sum of its parts. It is also worth noting that while the table of contents look as if there are almost 30 stories in the book, quite a few of these are not really stories in themselves but brief passages that lead to the next story or provide background information to move the major story arc of the book forward. In general the book tells the story of the colonization of Mars, which in a sense is a little bit like the reverse of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds in that we invade Mars and they fight back in their quiet ways only to meet the same fate as their counterparts in Wells' book. The major difference is that there is no interplanetary war and it is only the first part of the Chronicles.

I just want to make a few notes on the main stories, the brief interludes are also great but too short for my noting purposes.

Ylla (February 1999/2030*)
A Martian woman dreams (or have a premonition) of an Earthman's arrival. The actual First Contact does not go well.

The Summer Night (August 1999/2030)
Tell me more! Tell me more!

Pronti per un nuovo pianeta da distruggere?

“Gli uomini di Marte si accorsero che per sopravvivere avrebbero dovuto dimenticare la solita domanda: Perché vivere? La vita era risposta a se stessa. La vita era propagazione di maggior vita e di un vivere la miglior vita possibile. La vita era bella ora e non abbisognava di discussioni e di analisi.”

“La vita sulla Terra non s'è mai composta di qualcosa di veramente onesto e nobile. La scienza è corsa troppo innanzi agli uomini e troppo presto, e gli uomini si sono smarriti in un deserto meccanizzato, come bambini che si passino di mano in mano congegni preziosi, che si balocchino con elicotteri e astronavi a razzo; dando rilievo agli aspetti meno degni, dando valore alle macchine anziché al modo di servirsi delle macchine.”

“Il mio cuore batte, il mio stomaco ha fame, la mia bocca ha sete. No, né morti né vivi, tu e io. Più vivi di ogni altra cosa. Ma presi in mezzo, direi. Due sconosciuti che si sfiorano nelle tenebre della notte, ecco che cosa siamo. Due sconosciuti in cammino.”

Fantascienza che diventa poesia; sci-fi che si tramuta, quasi impercettibilmente, in una sorta di fiaba dalla morale semplice e diretta.
Il genuino spirito della scoperta, l'amore per l'ignoto e il desiderio di sconfiggere la solitudine, motori trainanti della progressiva colonizzazione di Marte, lasciano posto all'insofferenza da parte di un'umanità sempre più in balia dei propri limiti, tristemente incapace di districarsi dalla scarsa lungimiranza.
Ma la deresponsabilizzazione dalle proprie colpe non cambia la realtà dei fatti: volenti o nolenti, siamo tutti di passaggio su questa terra.
E siamo ancora in tempo per fare in modo che chi verrà dopo di noi abbia un lascito.

4,75*
Ray Bradbury escreveu que as suas Crónicas Marcianas não são ficção científica, mas mitologia. Compreendo. Há mais aqui sobre os seres humanos do que sobre ciência.
O que faríamos se pudéssemos fazer viagens interplanetárias e morar em Marte? Alguém acredita que faríamos tudo diferente?
"A vida na Terra nunca se compôs de forma que resultasse em algo muito bom. A ciência sempre avançou muito à nossa frente, demasiado depressa, e as pessoas acabaram por se perder numa vastidão mecânica, como crianças a inventar coisas bonitas (engenhocas, helicópteros, foguetões) e a enfatizar os elementos errados, a enfatizar as máquinas em vez do modo de gerir as máquinas. As guerras foram ficando cada vez maiores e, por fim, mataram a Terra."
Estas Crónicas devem ser lidas como uma crítica certeira de costumes e de características que nos condicionam onde quer que estejamos. Se pudéssemos ser melhores, sê-lo-iamos em qualquer lugar. Em vez disso, guerreamos e destruímos. Aqui ou em Marte. Talvez seja essa a nossa sina.

Hotdogs!! Get your hotdogs here!!

The Martian Chronicles is a history of a settlement on Mars by humans.

The first three expeditions failed, and all of their crews were killed by the native Martians; by the fourth expedition, most all the Martians have succumbed to chickenpox which hitchhiked from Earth.

Despite the actions of a crewmember of this expedition who was sympathetic to Martian culture, a foothold on the planet was established and colonization began.

This colonization was exclusively by the United States of America, as other nations were tied up in international struggles. There were some Martians left on Mars, who interacted with the human settlers.

Twenty years after the Great War on Earth and at the brink of human civilization's final collapse, some humans escaped their home planet to start over in Mars.

This is a very short book at 181 pages, but it's very complex and just goes to show how much of a literary genius Bradbury was.

It was absolutely brilliant and such a pleasure to read.