The Martian Chronicles

Written as a number of short stories that build a coherent arc, The Martian Chronicles is the story of mankind's repeated attempts to colonize Mars. Before man, Mars is populated by a psychic race that is in some ways surprising similar to Earth's western civilizations, a suburban utopia of housewives, gardens, and jobs, but with more complex and ancient arts, histories, and literature. Earth's initially missions are all failures, but eventually the Martian race is wiped out and humans colonize the planet, destroying the old beauty that the Martians leave behind. When Earth begins to collapse in nuclear war, Mars is abandoned, left to a few stragglers and some new immigrants. The whole of the work is varied, and each chapter/short story is different: some expository, some humorous, some scientific, some bittersweet, some about Martians, some about humans. There is something haunting and memorable about the text, the last chapters specifically, and while The Martian Chronicles is not my favorite sci-fi work or even my favorite book about an alien race (that would be Asimov's The God's Themselves), it is classic Bradbury: surreal yet suburban, science-fiction but relevant, ironic, enjoyable, bittersweet, and all in all a good book. I recommend it.It is hard to discuss or summarize The Martian Chronicles because of the amount of variety from chapter to chapter in the text. Each chapter reads like an independent short story and could even stand alone. However, as a whole the text does build a definitive arc, creating a final product that is greater than the sum of its parts. As a result of this build up, the last chapters are definitely the best of the bunch--they are the ones that will stick with the reader and carry the most impact. They are also the most depressing, surreal, and haunting of the bunch--haunting is a world that I'll use a lot because it really is the best descriptor of the final effect of this book. While early sections are funny and some later sections truly ironic and cynical, the book ends with the remnants of an abandoned planet, creating a story of remorse, memories, and, in the very end, the possibility of hope. The Martian ghost town is an image that sticks with you. It's magical, unreal, and, yes, haunting.The Martian Chronicles is classic Bradbury in its relevance, however--while the book may end with an abandoned foreign planet, every event implies a lesson and every lesson can be carried over to our domestic culture on earth. Bradbury teaches cynicism, the ignorance and foolishness of humans, our weakness, our hubris (and with it our downfall), the fragility of all people on all planets, and, somehow, ultimately, the human/sentient ability to persevere. It may be about Mars, but this is a very human book. While taking the reader to a foreign landscape, Bradbury ultimately reminds him of his own backyard.There is a lot of good sci-fi out there, and there are better (more original, more unique) examples of alien races, but Bradbury's Martian Chronicles is still worth reading. It's easy to get into and addicting, a very interesting concept, delightfully ironic, a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful. I enjoy this book and have read it a few times myself. I recommend it to others, although there is other sci-fi worth reading too. Pick this one up if the idea interests you or if you like Bradbury's other books.

This book is a classic for a reason. Though Bradbury admits that The Martian Chronicles is nothing but short stories written and pieced together over decades, the story still works incredibly well when read as a series of vignettes, deep dives into particular characters, places and events.Some of the characters change the faces of Earth and Mars, some are minor players just trying to do their part and others are lowly individuals scrounging for survival, but their disparate opinions and viewpoints do help to carve out a complete world that I think only manages to fall apart once or twice.The tone, the dark humor and the sheer creativity on display here would honestly be enough to elicit a five star review, but the central stretch of the book where it suddenly becomes a Fahrenheit 451 crossover novel, along with the overuse of preachy monologues in the final chapter do crack my immersion enough to lower the book's value in my eyes.However, I would still recommend it. It's thought-provoking and terrifying, and even though Bradbury's mythical depiction of Mars looks nothing like what we now know Mars to be, the picture of a planet he has paints here will forever remain on my list of favorite literary settings.

I've been a fan of Bradbury since I was a boy.There was a story, possibly by Bradbury, about the old scifi tales of Mount Shasta and the beings who lived there. I can't remember it's title. Great tale!Always a good read.

I had read only one book by Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, and that one only a few years ago. But recently a good friend, who knows more about authors and books than I ever will, emailed me a link about Bradbury on the occasion of his birthday. That piece sent me on a quest to learn more about him and his writings, 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: “First of all, I don't write science fiction. […] Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it's fantasy. It couldn't happen, you see?” That statement intrigued me. So, having read several of the ERB John Carter of Mars series, I decided it would be interesting to read Bradbury’s take on Mars, and it certainly was. Bradbury’s tales are shot through and through with what often is almost an in-your-face commentary on the human condition and human nature, and not a very complementary one, at that. And reading stories in 2021 that were composed in the late 1940s and published as a book in 1950 was a bit of an eerie experience, given that the opening story is set in a fictional January 2030—less than 9 years from now. In fact, the original edition has the action starting in 1999! Seeing how Bradbury imagined voyages to Mars and life on Mars so matter-of-factly 70 years ago, juxtaposed with what we know about the real challenges of interplanetary travel and the inhospitable conditions on the real Mars, made this an interestingly anachronistic kind of read. And although I certainly did not like or approve of the actions of many of the characters, I quite enjoyed the chronological ordering of the chapters and the fact that some of the early characters reappeared in subsequent stories. And I love the fact that reading on my Kindle app enables me to quickly search back to see where a character fist appeared!

Perhaps not the first writer of sci-fi but certainly one of the best. Bradbury takes you to another world and what you “see” is perhaps not as much fantasy-based as it first appears. Certainly the scientific advances we are now witness to alter his1950s vision, but can we truly be sure the future he saw was not influenced with a perhaps an unknown element of foresight?Enjoy the story, letting your imagination lead you where it may.

A strange book. A book every astronaut should read. It' s confusing. Are we on Mars or on Earth ? Are the characters Martians or Earthians ?

Ray Bradbury is my favourite author so I'm a little biased, but I can't stress enough how beautiful he writes. I strongly recommend you pick up either this book or The Illustrated Man and you'll read it in just a few sittings. It's so good it's hard to stop.

copertina flessibile

El libro es muy bueno al igual que la relación precio-calidad.A veces puede llegar a ser un poco complicada su lectura en el idioma original, pero no representa un gran problema. Las historias que relata reflejan algunas de las preocupaciones que el autor tenía sobre la época en la que vivió.