Rating: 
Summary: Literary achievement in the science fiction genre
Review: "The Martian Chronicles" sounds as if it should be filled with, yes, little green men or some kind of awful battle as in H.G. Wells classic. But instead, you find a boy on a playing field, a summer porch in the desert dust, and the ordinary world where the extraordinary is as much internal as external. Bradbury's style is so literary that many lovers of science fiction don't like what he has to say. But his writing is a lesson in lyricism, and should be read by anyone who likes the art of the short story or novel.
Rating:
Summary: Dated, but a classic in its era
Review: I finally sat down and read this novel -- a collection of loosely-linked short stories, really -- and caught myself comparing it to the sophisticated sci-fi of recent years. If I had kept up that mindset, I'm sure I would have rated it lower. But... Think back (those of you who can remember) to the days when the giants of sci-fi roamed the Earth: Bradbury. Asimov. Anderson. Clarke. Farmer. There was something fundamental, something elemental, about their writing, born of the dime novel and magazine column-inch, that you don't have today. That gritty, anti-Bronte sense where character development didn't matter as much because the writer's energy was going into creating a universe that heretofore didn't exist. Bradbury's Martian Chronicles is all this and more. In some ways, it is a Western, where the Martians are the (dare I say it?) Indians and clutzy Earth Men are the Europeans come to take what was never theirs. Like all great novels, it is a mirror, a dark one at that. All Science Fiction poses a question: if the laws of the Universe behaved thus-and-so, what would the outcome be? The Martians are a sophisticated and cultured race of telepaths and time-travelers, and are about to meet up with homicidal and self-absorbed Man. What will the outcome be? Bradbury doesn't flinch from painting an all-too-likely ending. Four stars, however, because Martian Chronicles, while a classic, has not stood the test of time well. It does owe almost too much to its noble and humble roots, and reads far more like a set of magazine articles than a homogeneous novel. Still, it is well worth reading, and gives a good glimpse into the glory that science fiction used to be.
Rating: 
Summary: I don't understand why this book is so highly regarded.
Review: I've heard this book referred to as a "masterpiece of science fiction" more than once, often from sources that suggest it isn't simply publishers' hype. After having actually read it, I cannot understand why. Bradbury's characters, by and large, are pretty thin. That might be forgivable if he were writing in order to set a mood or make some kind of interesting point, but his writing style tries too hard to be poetic, and his ideas are mostly pretty trite. There are quite a lot of books that cover colonial insenstivity, nuclear war, and the supposed meaninglessness or self-destructiveness of modern life, and Bradbury's doesn't stick out from the crowd. This could be partly because the book doesn't fully cohere. I know that it is supposed to be a connection of linked short stories, not a traditional novel, but Bradbury seems to have frequently changed his mind about the most fundamental aspects of his version of Mars. I might not mind this if I thought he was trying to make a point by presenting radically different kinds of Martians at different times, but that wouldn't be consistent with his somewhat superifical handling of many of the other ideas in the book. There are several stories in The Martian Chronicles that do succeed, and I suspect I would have been more impressed with it if I had read it when it came out. I can certainly see how it could seem impressive to someone who had read little or no science fiction, or literature in general. Still, it didn't have a lasting effect on me, and it looks pretty anemic next to, say, Ursula K. LeGuin or Gene Wolfe. If you are new to science fiction, I would refer you to one of those authors, or to a number of others. They have more interesting things to say than Bradbury.
Rating:
Summary: this book does not have what it takes to be a classic!
Review: Although it is one of Ray Bradbury's best-known books, The Martian Chronicles does not deserve its status as a "classic". Written in the mid-1940's, the book is doubtless an accurate glimpse of the era--it depicts the idealization of fondly remembered small-town comforts of youth so important to the disillusioned, post-war people of the 40's. And it depicts a vision of the future that is not possible today: heroic astronauts leave the Earth of 1999 (although Bradbury's 1999 lacks vision--the end of oppression of women and minorities is not yet in sight; in fact his 1999 is notably similar to 1946) to land on Mars, a fully habitable planet of vastly intelligent, humanoid aliens. However, their intelligence is itself questionable; Bradbury assures us that their society features innovative thinking, but the Martians of this book are completely incapable of accepting anything defying their common sense, i.e. space ships landing on Mars. I gave this book two stars strictly for its value as a "time capsule". Unfortunately as a work of literature it falls short. There is no plot to speak of, only a series of loosely related events that give an overview of the progression of settlements on Mars. Characters do not recur--each is limited to his or her own vignette. Even the word "character" is an exaggeration, as there is no characterization. There is an overwhelming feeling that Bradbury picked a single personality feature and a single action out of a hat, put them together and called it a character. Bradbury quite possibly meant to book to feel this way--placing his emphasis on the progression mentioned above and the psychological repercussions of this progression on group consciousness as opposed to characters and plot, but the book suffers for it, particularly because the psychological effects are incompletely and unconvincingly described. Without characters, plot, or even a convincing group consciousness, there is nothing to keep a reader INTERESTED. For a more inventive, enticing, and accurate work about human-alien interaction and settlement and their psychological repercussions, read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game--a book that deserves to be called a classic.
Rating: 
Summary: the worst book i ever read
Review: dont read this book if you are looking for a book that is interesting. the martian chronicles was easily the worst non-fiction book i ever read. it is boring and hard to understand. there is no flow and because of when it was written the author is completly wrong about how space exploration has turned out.
DONT READ THIS BOOK
Rating: 
Summary: Mixed Feelings
Review: People are evil and callous! It's in our nature to go around knocking down ancient sculptures without a thought! What innocent but beautiful alien races could possibly survive our barbarous passage?! Though an interesting read, this book just about overdoes the whole pessimism about humankind thing. Almost all the human characters, even the first astronauts to land, are stupid, ignorant, and impulsive. Sure, there's people like that, but almost all humans in the story are glib thoughtless sorts you'd like to punch in the face. The descriptive language and writing style is brilliant, but sometimes the plot itself is almost too much to deal with. The part where the black people go to Mars is ridiculous. Even as they're leaving for a new life, they are still cowed by some white guy on his creaky porch.
The sequence where this ugly lady chases the last man on Mars all around the planet made me roll my eyes. On the other hand, the Poe chapter and the "There will be soft rains" chapter were particularly interesting. I have very mixed feelings about this book and therefore give it three stars. The book was written shortly after World War II, so like George Orwell, it's not surprising that Bradbury looked to a grim future.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth Re-Reading
Review: I first read THE MARTIAN CHRONICALS when i was in 7th grade, and have re-read it at least 5 times since. I agree with others that this is a Sci-Fi masterpiece. The book is separate, loosely connected stories written in the hitchcock tradition of misdirection. The movie made based on this book was a huge disappointment for me.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome, awesome book
Review: I don't read a lot, but I seriously could not put this book down once I started it. Bradbury has a brilliant imagination and an excellent, descriptive writing style, and this makes the Martian Chronicles one of the best books I have ever read! This book is a series of related stories in chronological order from 1999 to 2026, detailing the events that take place on Mars. (Keep in mind this was written in the late 40's!) Even though it was written so long ago, it is not at all dated, for the most part it may as well have been written by a modern writer. Seriously, read this book and then go listen to Opeth.
Rating:
Summary: A Cubist Telling of the Red Planet
Review: Mars has always played a big part in science fiction. From Burroughs's macho fantasies to Wells's merciless invaders, from Heinlein's strange land to Robinson's terraforming, Mars has been writ large in our imagination. But the current that runs through all of these works is of a world both coherent and uniform. The planet exists as a whole and is presented to us as a whole. But if we stopped to think about it, how can a planet as immense as Mars be taken as a whole? If we looked deeply, wouldn't Mars present an infinite number of facets to our scrutiny? Wouldn't each facet tell its own unique and peculiar story? This is what Bradbury does in "The Martian Chronicles". The title serves as fair warning. This is not a conventional novel, but a set of chronicles: a collection of tidbits written to give us a taste of a place's boundless variety. And what a refreshing approach it is. In this work, Mars is more than just a setting. It becomes a personality; some days happy, some days sad; some days heedless, some days thoughtful. Some of these vignettes succeed better than others. But taken in their entirety, they provide us with a breadth of feeling that would not be possible in a single uniform work. However, if this were all that this work accomplished, it would be no more than an interesting exercise in technique. "Chronicles" really compels us because it touches our souls. Of all the science fiction greats, Bradbury strikes closest to the human heart. No one else can write quite his way; achieving that just-right balance between eccentricity and pathos, ordinary and fantastic; life and circumstance: living and breathing filtered through the orange mist of nostalgia. Nowhere does he strike that balance as well as he does here. Nor should readers be put off by the abrupt changes. The various stories may jump from place to place and character to character, but there is a wealth of strong underlying themes that bind the various segments into a coherent whole. How do ordinary people respond to an extraordinary environment? Can intelligence overcome tribal instincts to embrace completely different beings? Can we ever, in the depth of our bones, truly make an alien landscape our home? Is our greatest challenge the conquest of space, or the conquest of human frailty? These are only some of the many worthy themes that run through the various episodes. It's not perfect. I will be the first to admit that some episodes don't quite work. But what it lacks in consistent polish, it makes up for in nerve and originality. Bradbury is not content just to explore human themes. He chances unconventional approaches because the themes he wishes to explore are themselves unconventional. It takes literary guts to take such chances, and when they even half work, the composer deserves respect. In this collection, the general quality is so high, that it demands our appreciation.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Sci-Fi with Cold War twist
Review: Many people see Ray Bradbury as the greatest sci-fi author ever, and for good reason. This book is actually a collection of short stories running along the constant theme of Earthmen coming to explore Mars. Written in 1950, this book goes much deeper than the casual reader might suspect as it foreshadows and symbolizes the world's deepest fears and darkest threats of the time- global destruction through use of atomic bombs and Cold War prejudice and misunderstanding. Bradbury pulls themes from these and other social, political, and philosophical issues to add texture and depth to his stories of space travel and alien exploration. This is one of the greatest sci-fi novels around, and Bradbury is hands-down one of the greatest sci-fi authors to publish work.
| 
