Paperback, 320 pages
English language
Published Dec. 1, 2008 by HarperFiction.
This is a collection of science fiction short stories, cleverly cobbled together to form a coherent and very readable novel about a future colonization of Mars. As the stories progress chronologically the author tells how the first humans colonized Mars, initially sharing the planet with a handful of Martians. When Earth is devastated by nuclear war the colony is left to fend for itself and the colonists determine to build a new Earth on Mars.
Many of the chapters come off as campfire horror stories, everywhere tinged with the horrors of the atomic age. Incredibly insightful, especially considering when it was published. Still very relevant and very readable in 2019.
“The Martian Chronicles” by Ray Bradbury is a book I wanted to like so much. It is considered by many to be a classic of science fiction and it was the novel that launched Bradbury into prominence. His brilliance and poetic sensibilities shine through here. But the structure of loosely connected stories that may or may not take place on Mars (many of them were previous published and then put into this collection) make the whole work a bit less than the sum of its parts.
The basic premise of the novel is the settlement of Mars by humans from Earth and the gradual destruction of Earth. Mars as Bradbury portrays it once had a thriving civilization that was destroyed with the arrival of humanity. It is a planet of canals and crystal cities. Humans establish new cities and spaces but the memory of those who were once there continues …
“The Martian Chronicles” by Ray Bradbury is a book I wanted to like so much. It is considered by many to be a classic of science fiction and it was the novel that launched Bradbury into prominence. His brilliance and poetic sensibilities shine through here. But the structure of loosely connected stories that may or may not take place on Mars (many of them were previous published and then put into this collection) make the whole work a bit less than the sum of its parts.
The basic premise of the novel is the settlement of Mars by humans from Earth and the gradual destruction of Earth. Mars as Bradbury portrays it once had a thriving civilization that was destroyed with the arrival of humanity. It is a planet of canals and crystal cities. Humans establish new cities and spaces but the memory of those who were once there continues to haunt the stories. Mars may be Mars but the stories here give us space to explore questions of colonization, memory, religion, violence and a myriad of other human foibles and failings. Bradbury was an author who could tap into the light and darkness of the human spirit and while the novel may be science fiction, like all good science fiction it has much more to say about us today. In fact, I might argue that Bradbury is less an author of science fiction and more an author of the fantastic – stories that often have a surreal, dark, horrific quality that indulge in our sense of wonder at the dark spaces of our own minds.
Like all of his works, even if you do not completely like it, you cannot help but admire Bradbury’s energy and joy with which he wrote. This may not be my favorite work of Bradbury (that honor goes to “[b:Fahrenheit 451|4381|Fahrenheit 451|Ray Bradbury|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1351643740s/4381.jpg|1272463]” and “[b:Something Wicked This Way Comes|248596|Something Wicked This Way Comes (Green Town, #2)|Ray Bradbury|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1409596011s/248596.jpg|1183550]”) but I acknowledge its place in the canon of twentieth-century science fiction literature.
Je me souviens avoir lu ce roman après que ma soeur l'ait étudié au lycée. J'en garde un bon souvenir, et c'est peut-être l'un de mes premiers contacts avec les grands auteurs de science-fiction.
Well, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure I understood it all. I'm not even sure I'm meant to. a gathering of stories that don't entirely mix, showing the 30ish years of man's colonization of mars. And it's depressing as hell. But still very good.
Favorite book, ever.
1) ''It wouldn't be right, the first night on Mars, to make a loud noise, to introduce such a strange, silly bright thing like a stove. That would be a kind of imported blasphemy. There'd be time for that later; time to throw condensed-milk cans in the proud Martian canals; time for copies of the New York Times to blow and caper and rustle across the lone gray Martian sea bottoms; time for banana peels and pic-nic papers in the fluted, delicate ruins of the old Martian valley towns. Plenty of time for that.''
2) '''On the contrary, those are God symbols, symbols of life. Man had become too much man and not enough animal on Mars too. And the men of Mars realized that in order to survive they would have to forgo asking that one question any longer: Why live? Life was its own answer. Life was the …
1) ''It wouldn't be right, the first night on Mars, to make a loud noise, to introduce such a strange, silly bright thing like a stove. That would be a kind of imported blasphemy. There'd be time for that later; time to throw condensed-milk cans in the proud Martian canals; time for copies of the New York Times to blow and caper and rustle across the lone gray Martian sea bottoms; time for banana peels and pic-nic papers in the fluted, delicate ruins of the old Martian valley towns. Plenty of time for that.''
2) '''On the contrary, those are God symbols, symbols of life. Man had become too much man and not enough animal on Mars too. And the men of Mars realized that in order to survive they would have to forgo asking that one question any longer: Why live? Life was its own answer. Life was the propagation of more life and the living of as good a life as possible. The Martians realized that they asked the question 'Why live at all?' at the height of some period of war and despair, when there was no answer. But once the civilization calmed, quieted, and wars ceased, the question became senseless in a new way. Life was now good and needed no arguments.'''
3) ''The old Martian names were names of water and air and hills. They were the names of snows that emptied south in stone canals to fill the empty seas. And the names of sealed and buried sorcerers and towers and obelisks. And the rockets struck at the names like hammers, breaking away the marble into shale, shattering the crockery milestones that named the old towns, in the rubble of which great pylons were plunged with new names: IRON TOWN, STEEL TOWN, ALUMINUM CITY, ELECTRIC VILLAGE, CORN TOWN, GRAIN VILLA, DETROIT II, all the mechanical names and the metal names from Earth.
And after the towns were built and named, the graveyards were built and named, too: Green Hill, Moss Town, Boot Hill, Bide a Wee; and the first dead went into their graves...''
4) ''It was the twentieth year after the Great War. Mars was a tomb planet. Whether or not Earth was the same was a matter for much silent debate for Hathaway and his family on the long Martian nights.
This night one of the violent Martian dust storms had come over the low Martian graveyards, blowing through ancient towns and tearing away the plastic walls of the newer, American-built city that was melting down into the sand, desolated.''
I will take this opportunity to once again reiterate that Bradbury is at his best when keeps his stories tightly focused. These incisive imaginings are incredible, and he rises to the challenge of offering us a world that is familiar-yet-strange. It's impossible not to feel feel the heavier air at the bottom of the uncanny valley every other page or so.
I remember reading "There Will Come Soft Rains" in high school, and having now read the rest of the Chronicles, it remains one of my favorites. Add to that "The Earth Men," "Usher II," "The Off Season" and "—And the Moon Be Still as Bright" ("We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things") to get my top five favorites. However, all of these stories are great, as is the thread twining them all together.
Many of the stories show their age badly, but there are some real gems in here. In particular, I was fond of "Usher II" & "There Will Come Soft Rains".
Having read some science fiction now, and seen movies about martian travel all my life, this book was a refreshing new perspective on the red planet. Bradbury writes naieve superficial stories that skim the surface of the fantasy world that mars must have seemed to readers in the early part of last century. Having now seen actual video recorded on the surface of the planet it has lost much of it's luster in recent years. But in Bradbury's world it is stage to extraterrestrial, as well as racial and cultural conflict; home to shape shifting psychics, and american mavericks and hermits. The picture he paints is one that seems more like the American southwest complete with disenfranchised natives, than the Mars we see in popular culture today. I found this book immensely entertaining for it's commentary on the human condition, not for it's futurism.
I first read this book in middle school, and it was one of my first introductions to Ray Bradbury's writing. It's a magical work, really a collection of short stories, but as always it's Bradbury's thorough understanding of human nature that sets him apart. Well, that and his prose. I could die a happy man if I ever wrote something that affected people as profoundly as Bradbury's work affects me.
