The Martian Chronicles

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.

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.