Martian Chronicles

Rating:
Summary: Groundbreaking Tales of the Ugly Earthling
Review: Some "classics" don't live up to the hype, but this groundbreaker by Ray Bradbury still deserves to be called a classic. There are few writers who can display Bradbury's sense of melancholy and creeping dread, and these qualities give the supposedly pedestrian sci-fi subject matter of this book an unexpected depth and edge. Sure the basic futuristic aspects of this book are getting rusty (it was written in the 1940's mind you), but the unique themes of interplanetary culture shock and social phobia are what make this book unique. We've all heard the term "ugly American" applied to obnoxious and condescending American tourists around the world, and here Bradbury extends the phenomenon to human colonization of Mars in the near future. The obvious parallel that Bradbury is making is with the European destruction of the Indians and enslavement of Africans. This is evident in the book's most haunting chapters concerning the mass death of Martians from human disease, and the haunting exodus of African Americans to Mars from the racist South. There are also many instances of cultural misunderstanding and conflict between the human colonizers and native Martians, allegories for the root of just about every social problem on Earth. This book is essentially a collection of short stories or vignettes (not a full novel as is often assumed) dwelling on these concepts that are highly unique to science fiction, and remain groundbreaking to this day.

Rating:
Summary: The classic science fiction novel of the 20th Century
Review: If it were not for NBC's wonderful and faithful mini-series adaptation of Ray Bradbury's classic novel, I would not have ever read it. Since viewing British director Michael Anderson's six-hour mini-series from 1979, I have read Ray Bradbury's science fiction classic on more than one occassion. With each reading, it gets better and better. I'd have to say that The Martian Chronicles is my favorite book of all time. Not just in the science fiction genre, but in the literary genre, period. It is a mesh of both space mythology and space opera, that seamlessly, if not smoothly, fits into the science fiction genre. It also acts as a mirror for humanity itself. Especially when it comes to Man's arrogance and perpetual tendency for ruining big, beautiful things. Let alone, Man's nasty habits of violence and destruction.

From 1999 to 2026 AD, The Martian Chronicles tells the story of man going to Mars. Of learning the Martian Way Of Life, and about itself. Leaving Earth on the brink of destruction, Man colonizes Mars, and in a sense, Mars conquers Man itself. It also conveys a message about how Man could enjoy life to its fullest and derive pleasure from the gift of pure being. A life that is beneficial and totally devoid of destructive tendencies.

To this day, The Martian Chronicles is still considered to be a science fiction classic. In many ways, it is the great science fiction novel novel ever produced. Ray Bradbury has given science fiction fans a wonderful, if not surreal, adventure that could teach the human race, or to be more precise, humanity itself, a better way of life. The scene between John Wilder and Jeff Spender is one example of this. Especially the scene concerning Tomas and the Martian in the dead Martian city.

If enjoy classic science fiction that has not been affected by Hollywood, then you will enjoy this epic science fiction adventure. I would also recommend the 1979 NBC six-hour mini-series adaptation of this book, too. Both are just as memorable and thought-provoking, if not deep when it comes to its philosophical storyline.

Rating:
Summary: WoW
Review: This book is one of the best books I have read. It has all of things I like in a book space, a good story,a kinda hidden messege,and I did not get bored reading this book. I liked the way it progressed. It seems so realistic like this could happen.Each chapter brings new emotions. One chapter you are laughing and the next you are sad. Aftar reading this book and finding out about Ray it makes me want to read more of his books. He is a really good author my favorite so far.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad...not bad at all...
Review: Although it was a little confusing at first, I finally understood that it was a collection of Bradbury's short stories. Basically, it is about men pioneering to Mars and trying to civilize it, but alas, fail, save for Walter Gripp, Genevieve, and Timothy and his family. The Martians, before dying out completely, had a few tricks of their own (i.e. "Edward" -who is a Martian in disguise-killing his brother, John Black) and they also can be civilized (remember the astronaut talking to the Martian?). In all, it showed how men tried to conquer Mars and make it their own, just as the Europeans took the land from the Indians. History does repeat itself, doesn't it? I think, to some degree, this book represents history, but instead of success, there is a great amount of failure. Gosh! People die too much in this book! But it is a good book, nonetheless.

Rating:
Summary: A true American Poet
Review: This was a very light and insightful read in my opinion. It prods at the five mark, but can not quite pull me there completly. Here's why:
Ray Bradbury successfully weaves together a series of short stories all revolving around Mars and the progression of time from man's first landing on it's surface, to his last. Adjusting to the Mars that Bradbury colorfully conjures up was slightly tedious for me as a reader. I found this to be the case because when Bradbury first had the book published it was true Science Fiction and although far-fetched, had a firm base in scientific knowledge of the Red Planet at the time. In the year 2003, that knowledge is anachronistic. There are no little men on Mars building canal systems and furthering their race on the science of the martian mind. If you are a reader that can actually overlook fact and lose yourself in the fantasy (since it truthfully can not be called a science fiction), you will finish it knowing that you have chanced upon some very profound truths illustrated in a very unusual manner. Bradbury (coined a poet by his compatriot Aldous Huxley) does a brilliant job of illumining the inherent self-destructiveness of mankind and how this can not only destroy the lives of others, but make less meaningful individual lives as well. Read it, you'll be a more self-aware human being because of it, and you will be entertained and awed by the spectrum of emotion that Bradbury adeptly draws his readers through. And....If you like H.G. Wells and get a kick out of the alien phenomenon in literature at that time, you'll absolutely adore "The Martian Chronicles."

Rating:
Summary: Bradbury's best!
Review: Brilliant, brilliant book describing a fictional colonization of Mars by earthlings. This book was one of those I was forced to read in high school English class. But unlike "The Odyssey" and "The Great Gatsby", both of which I refused to read after the second chapter for the sole purpose of retaining my sanity, I couldn't put this one down. I'm not even a big sci-fi fan, but Bradbury's imaginitive narratives intertwine with poetry in a way that captures the reader and doesn't let go. Indeed, his books read more like descriptions of a dream than they do futuristic conquests and police states.

Bradbury's constant flaw is an oversimplistic description of highly significant and complicated events, like the beginning of nuclear war. Nuclear war begins, people all go home on rocketships, and the earth ends. Very simple, and I'd like if he went just a little more in depth. But I'm willing to trade that for Bradbury's imaginative style. He captures my feelings and emotions in a way that my other favorite writer Stephen King cannot.

Great reading for any fiction fan.

Rating:
Summary: Bradbury VS Asimov
Review: With the passing of the master (Isaac Asimov)the question is hardly asked anymore. Who's better, Bradbury or Asimov? The two were both born in 1920 and they made their fame in the forties, fifties, and sixties, writing (and pioneering) a kind of fantastical pulp fiction that would eventually become known as science fiction. In short, the two men were giants of the genre and so their work, their art, naturally invited comparison. I have always loved them both, Asimov for his great ideas and Bradbury for his great storytelling voice. Asimov, the university professor, was trained as a hard science man--physics, mathematics, chemistry. If he had not made his name as a writer, he probably would have designed the first rocket ship that landed on the moon. In fact, we owe him thanks for the word "ROBOT", the rules for governing them (ha-ha-ha, see I Robot), and the fledgling field of robotics itself. Is there a more representative work of science fiction than The Foundation Trilogy? Though Asimov is known primarily in literary circles as a science fiction writer, the great man was a thinker of ideas so varied that his books earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records: he is the only author who has at least one book in every category of the Dewey Decimal System. In other words, no matter where you are in the library, you can find a book written by Asimov. Bradbury, on the other hand, is not a scientist. In fact, if you check out some of the stories in the Martian Chronicles, his best collection, you will discover working rocket ships that were built with hammers and nails in somebody's barn. You'll find life forms that are bubbles with voices. You'll find a variety of strange and contradictory rules for space flight. And you know what? None of it matters because Bradbury's appeal, unlike Asimov's, has nothing to do with his grasp of scientific principles and the various real and imagined extrapolations thereof. We read Bradbury because he is a writer first and a scientist second. Bradbury could write a story about ice melting in a cup, and we'd be on page 200, reading with pleasure, before we looked up and said, hey, why the heck am I reading a story about ice melting in a cup? Bradbury explores the humanity of his characters when he writes, as the stories in the Martian Chronicles prove, and he has an absolutely addictive storytelling voice. It's kinda like sitting under a tree with your grandfather and listening to him spin yearns. Time passes before you know it, and you wish he could go on talking forever. So here it is then, Read the Martian Chronicles not for the science, but for the fiction, and you will not be disappointed by the master.

Rating:
Summary: Sci-Fi Enchantment
Review: Bradbury took a series of short stories he'd written about Mars that had been printed in magazines and wove them together into one story The Martian Chronicles. Chronicles first went into print in 1950 and has been continuously in print ever since. Bradbury opens the volume with a series of stories about four Earth Expeditions to the Red Planet (Rocket Summer, Ylla, The Summer Night, The Earthmen, The Taxpayer, The Third Expedition, -An The Moon Be Still As Bright). The fourth expedition discovers that the Martians have nearly died out from an Earth disease. Earth colonizes the planet and later discovers that there are Martian survivors of the plague in hiding. The next series of stories take on the various stages of colonization (The Settlers, The Green Morning, The Locusts, Night Melting, The Shore, The Fire Balloons, Interim, The Musicians, The Wilderness) and finally civilization comes (The Naming of Names, Usher II, The Old Ones, The Martian). Then tragedy strikes as a nuclear war erupts on Earth, which causes most of the colonists to return home, while refugees from Earth travel to Mars to get away from the war (The Luggage Store, The Off Season, The Watchers, The Silent Towns, The Long Years, There Will Come Soft Rains, and The Million-Year Picnic). The stories begin in the year 2030 and end in 2057. For Bradbury, an empty page is a canvass on which to take his pen and ply words to paint pictures so clear that they dance in the reader's mind's eye. I can actually hear Bradbury telling me the story as my eyes drift over the pages. These stories will make the reader run the gambit of emotions and give them valuable observations of accepted human behavior to consider from a classic sci-fi master. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Classic Sci-Fi
Review: An interesting tale of how humans interact with another world. The premise of colonization is tertiary to the actual stories that abound in this series written over 50 years ago.

The stories themselves are vignettes that tell of life on Mars, but in classic Brabury style, they have other tales to tell. Principle to the first few stories is the human race's 'virus like' defeat of the Martian planet's defenses. Is Bradbury staking an early claim to a title of environmentalist? Another is the constant examples of how humans who are seeking to escape problems on Earth simply recreate them on Mars.

Political corrrectness is most definitely lacking in some stories, but the overall brilliance of the series should not be pulled down by overzealous censors.

This is an excellent SciFi series that should be read by all who call themselves fans of the genre.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant...a must read for not only sci-fi fans but those..
Review: ...interested in human nature and the frightening part in us, the future of mankind. Like other classics, it still holds up today without seeming dated.

So many authors, so many books to love...but The Martian Chronicles has remained one of my very favorites that I have read many many times. To the previous reviewer the reason the African American gets ridiculed so much is because he is the first astronaut to "appreciate & learn from" the Martians and for good reason, he is a minority with a racially torured past (racism, slavery, misunderstood etc etc by the establishment). One who could understand and want to preserve it's beauty. It was a statement. I met Ray Bradbury at a small book signing, I mentioned that The Martian Chronicles reminded me of the plight of the Native American people & other cultures in history must have been in the back of his mind when he wrote this. His response was "yes, you're very correct & observant, thank you"... Absolute brilliant author, very kind man (does book signings very often) & of course the auther of such awe imspiring books as The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451 etc.

This is REAL science fiction or should I say thought provoking novels. Always a humanitarian touch, something such dribble these days of very poor (if you want to call it) sci-fi is lacking...God how I miss Rod Serling to give a kick in the pants of Hollywood today...and how I miss the 60's-70's.

ps: If you get the chance, see the film version starring Rock Hudson. 3 part (if I remember correctly, 6 hours) made for TV series. While it doesn't cover the entire book (films rarely do), it does a very good job getting the point across. You'll love the "golden bee gun", the Martians masks & the "sand ships"...