The Martian Chronicles is one of those titles I saw listed again and again as one of science fiction’s key texts – it ranks sixth on the aggregate list Classics of Science Fiction. But because I thought Fahrenheit 451 was so awfully preachy, it took me 8 years to pick up this other Bradbury title. The lesson here is: never judge an author by one book – The Martian Chronicles indeed is a deserved, enduring classic.

While there is a certain naivety in the book – Earthlings just go and bang on an alien door and introduce themselves, unafraid of pathogens or possibly dangerous Martian mores – and Bradbury doesn’t seem too concerned with realism on that front, the book does manage to evoke a real enough image of certain crucial aspects of the human condition.

It will also delight certain readers The Martian Chronicles is critical of colonialism, American imperialism, consumerism and the nuclear arms race. It was published as The Silver Locusts in the UK, a title that clearly advocates a political interpretation. And yes, in a way, this early 50ies book is ‘woke’ indeed. But as Jesse pointed out on Speculiction, Bradbury does so without overtly preaching or easy dichotomies – is this really the same guy who wrote Fahrenheit 451?

Content aside, what struck me most was the book’s formal power.

(...)

Read the full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It ( )

Painfully outdated from the scientific perspective and from the moral perspective likewise. Product of it's time that is simply not entertaining enough anymore. ( )

Rocket Summer - 3
Ylla - 3
The Summer Night - 2.5
The Earth Men - 3
The Taxpayer - 3
The Third Expedition - 3.5
And The Moon Be Still As Bright - 2
The Settlers - 2
The Green Morning - 3
The Locusts - 4
Night Meeting - 3.5
The Shore - 3
The Fire Balloons - 1
Interim - 3
The Musicians - 2.5
Wake Up In The Middle of The Air - 3
The Naming of Names - 3
The Old Ones - 2.5
The Martian - 3.5
The Luggage Store - 3
The Off-season - 2.5
The Watchers - 3
The Summer Towns - 3.5
The Long Nights - 2
There Will Come Soft Rains - 4
The Million Year Picnic - 3

"There was a smell of time in the air tonight."

Not a misspelling of "thyme". The above sentence is just the sort of sentence that grinds my gears. It grinds my gears because it's that sort of sentence that often becomes a precursor, in Bradbury's books, to a whole load of "poetic" waffle. Bradbury tends to take what, in essence, are a rather fun set of stories, and then dress them up in this pink, fluffy, nonsensical language which, when you're not really paying attention, might come across as fairly well-written, but not so much when you zoom in.

Some of you might be thinking "whoa now. Chill out, buddy. What have you got against poor Bradbury anyway?"

I'll tell you what I've got against Bradbury. It's not that he's bad, it's that he's bad and everyone thinks he's good. And not only does everyone seem to think he's good, but he's labelled as a master of science fiction.

Now, the three most significant works of Ray Bradbury are considered to be the following:

The Martian Chronicles
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Fahrenheit 451

Other than this, Bradbury hasn't written a lot else in the way of novels, though he has been quite prolific with his short fiction.

The Martian Chronicles really barely qualifies as science fiction, in that it's set in space and features Martians. But other than that, there really isn't any science at all. In fact, it's more like social commentary wrapped up in a camp '50s sci-fi costume. Something Wicked This Way Comes is nothing more than a whimsical coming-of-age story, and Fahrenheit 451 (Bradberry's most famous) is only labelled sci-fi for the same reasons George Orwell's 1984 is, in that it's a dystopia (oh, and there's this robot dog). So why, on the front cover of The Martian Chronicles do I see the following quote?:

"The King of Science Fiction"

The King of Science Fiction? Doesn't that rather imply that the majority of golden age authors are below him?

Rant over. Despite my frustrations, Chronicles is not a terrible book. It's somewhere inbetween. The thing about short story collections is that even if there are good stories within, the bad stories still leave a bit of a bitter taste in your mouth once you finish, tainting the overall mark. So, even though I feel like I hated this, looking back on how I've rated each individual story, it's clear that the book is warrants three stars. There are only two stories I thought worthy of four stars, and really only "There Will Come Soft Rains" can be considered a story. "The Locusts" is more of an interlude, but I liked how it was written. There are several interludes throughout the book that connect stories together, but there is a fine line with some of them as to whether to regard them as interludes or stories in their own right... so I just ended up rating each and every chapter.

I enjoyed "The Earth Men", but I thought it had a bit of a sloppy ending. Generally, with a lot of the stories that I rated 3.5 there was often some element getting in the way of them reaching their full potential, whether that be a bad ending, sloppy writing or a poor flow. In all fairness, this was Bradbury's first book, so it's expected for his style to be less developed as in his later work. The stories were also not originally intended to be linked, but at the time it seemed that the only way Bradbury was going to get his work published was to merge some of them into a fix-up novel.

There was one Martian-related Bradbury story I once read called "Dark They Were, with Golden Eyes", which I thoroughly enjoyed. Unfortunately, it is not collected here. Although I think it's probably better than any of the stories within the book, it wouldn't really fit well inside the chronology. In fact, among the waffle, Bradbury has written some rather good stories. I do think a lot of the gold is to be found scattered among his short fiction, but The Martian Chronicles is not the best example. Life is short, so unless someone puts a gun to my head, this may well be the last of Bradbury that I read. ( )

Puoi trovare questa recensione anche sul mio blog, La siepe di more

Cronache marziane, oltre a essere il resoconto fantascientifico della colonizzazione di Marte da parte dei terrestri, è la dimostrazione dell’incapacità dell’uomo bianco e occidentale di rapportarsi in maniera sana con popolazioni diverse, finendo per portare loro rovina e distruzione.

Bradbury si premura di farci vedere quest’uomo bianco in tutta sua ridicola smania di potere: lo vediamo desideroso di possedere una donna (ma solo se è come dice lui), di schiavizzare e umiliare i suoi simili, di distruggere la Terra, di convertire alla vera religione esseri che seguono già principi etici ai quali gli uomini faticano ad arrivare, di voler fare soldi – montagne di soldi – convinto di aver trovato la sua miniera d’oro…

Ci sono un’infinità di temi in questi racconti e tutti ci fanno disprezzare quest’uomo bianco, così convinto della sua superiorità e così evidentemente marcio. Bradbury non teme di mostrarcelo in tutto il suo squallore umano, senza mai fare la morale a nessuno, lasciando che sia la storia a parlare per sé e a colpire chi legge. Una storia dopo l’altra, un crimine dietro l’altro, nella speranza che, rendendoci impossibile far finta di non aver capito, si possa cambiare qualcosa.

Odio questa sensazione di credere di fare ciò ch’è giusto, quando non sono affatto sicuro di farlo. Chi siamo noi, del resto? la maggioranza? è questa la risposta? la maggioranza è sempre sacra, non è vero? Sempre, sempre; non sbaglia mai, nemmeno per una minuscola frazione d’un minuscolo insignificante momentino? mai una volta nemmeno in dieci milioni di anni? Ma in fin dei conti, pensava il capitano, che cos’è questa maggioranza e da chi è composta? e che cosa pensa, come fa a fare quello che fa, non cambierà mai? e io, soprattutto, come ho fatto a trovarmici in mezzo, a questa marcia maggioranza? Non mi ci trovo bene, io. Si tratta forse di claustrofobia, di paura della folla, o semplicemente di buon senso?
Può un uomo solo avere ragione, mentre tutto il resto del mondo è convinto di avere ragione lui? ( )

Beautifully written thought provoking collection of short stories in chronological order that were often a bit disjoint. ( )