“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.