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The Martian Chronicles (1950)

by Ray Bradbury

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
16,530320311 (4.05)2 / 700
Fiction. Literature. Science Fiction. Short Stories. HTML:

Mars was a distant shore, and the men spread upon it in waves... Each wave different, and each wave stronger.

The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury is a storyteller without peer, a poet of the possible, and, indisputably, one of America's most beloved authors. In a much celebrated literary career that has spanned six decades, he has produced an astonishing body of work: unforgettable novels, including Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes; essays, theatrical works, screenplays and teleplays; The Illustrated Mein, Dandelion Wine, The October Country, and numerous other superb short story collections. But of all the dazzling stars in the vast Bradbury universe, none shines more luminous than these masterful chronicles of Earth's settlement of the fourth world from the sun.

Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams and metaphor-of crystal pillars and fossil seas-where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn -first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars ... and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is a classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time's passage. In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster once again enthralls, delights and challenges us with his vision and his heart-starkly and stunningly exposing in brilliant spacelight our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.

.
… (more)
  1. 262
    Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (jpers36, moietmoi, DionnePasion)
  2. 92
    Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (bertilak)
    bertilak: Bradbury has said that Winesburg, Ohio was one of the inspirations for The Martian Chronicles (grotesque characters in Ohio versus on Mars).
  3. 70
    Kaleidoscope by Ray Bradbury (rionka)
    rionka: a lot of pictures from the same world. or from the world we have in our heads.
  4. 31
    Desolation Road by Ian McDonald (Sethgsamuel)
  5. 21
    Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem (CGlanovsky)
    CGlanovsky: Visions of humans colonizing planets with declining civilizations
  6. 21
    Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges (lewbs)
    lewbs: Borges admired The Martian Chronicles. The two books have much in common.
  7. 11
    I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (mike_frank)
    mike_frank: Similar story telling, short stories tying together a grander story arch.
  8. 22
    Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (andomck)
    andomck: Both books are about colonization. One is from the perspective of colonizer, the other the colonized.
  9. 11
    The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein (fulner)
    fulner: A trip from Luna to Mars then off to the Asteroid Belt to mine. The Sapce Family Stone has fantastic story telling. Emotial respnose. REAL MATH! and a story that keeps you truning pages. Highly recommended.
1950s (24)
Read (78)
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English (287)  Spanish (12)  Danish (5)  Italian (4)  French (3)  Catalan (2)  Swedish (2)  Romanian (1)  German (1)  Dutch (1)  All languages (318)
Showing 1-5 of 287 (next | show all)
A mix of stories in the fantastic tone typical of Bradbury loosely based around Mars. I snjoy the descriptions, it is not always believable, the characters are sometimes caricatures. Great writing but not solid in the science of sci-fi. ( )
  yates9 | Feb 28, 2024 |
Excellent book for kids of all ages. ( )
  alanac50 | Feb 27, 2024 |
Imaginative but very dated. ( )
  jdowner | Feb 17, 2024 |
((1958)A collection of tales about earth men going to Mars to find it inhabited by various types of Martians. But man being man, Earth is destroyed and the remnants of man escapes to Mars to become Martians.KIRKUS REVIEWA flight of fancy in time and space which transcribes some incidents which take place on the planet of Mars, there's a literary, visionary quality here and an avoidance of the more mechanistic aspects of this medium. From the first expeditions from the earth in rocket ships, to the first settlements, this projects the war to come in which the earth is almost totally destroyed, and the return to Mars- now a wasted, lonely land, by some of its survivors. None of the complexities of concepts or formulae, this has an imaginative rather than technical ingenuity.Pub Date: May 4th, 1950ISBN: 0380973839Page count: 259ppReview Posted Online: March 20th, 2012Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1st, 1950
  derailer | Jan 25, 2024 |
CW: Racism, Racial Slurs, Animal Harm

I truly don't know what to say. This book is unlike anything else I have ever read and, outside of a few obvious elements, feels incredibly modern and relevant. So much so that I genuinely struggle to understand that it was first published in 1950.

A collection of various connected stories about human beings visiting and living in the Red Planet that follow on from one another in an increasing timeline that describes the beginning and end of exploration and settling on Mars. These are told on Bradbury's unique blend of genres to create expressive, emotive, baffling, and heart-wrenching scenes.

When I first read Dandelion Wine, I knew I adored Bradbury's imagination and magically poetic prose, and would have to read everything I could get my hands on. Unfortunately, Dandelion Wine was a LOT and left me very ambivalent about that book, if not Bradbury's writing, so I took a long break and came back with this. I could not have chosen a more perfect book to come back to!

I really am struggling to articulate how or why these stories are so good and have left a profound impression on me. It is certainly somewhat to do with the chimeral, alchemical oddity that is the way Bradbury writes and surreality of the concepts and conceit he pays with. This isn't a science fiction short story anthology. Not really. Science fiction is one element, but horror, especially gothic horror, tragedy, drama, melodrama, military, absurdism, political commentary, come together with so much more in an occult blend that doesn't necessarily scare, but assaults the mental senses from every possible angle like an iron maiden filled with silverfish . Of course, all those elements and genres often come together in many other works, but there is just something so unsettling and otherworldly about the way Bradbury does it.

It would be easy to reference things like The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror, but just because it's bizarre and sci-fi related doesn't mean it does a thing to describe what this is like. I know several of the stories were adapted for shows like this, but I'm trying to imagine a way of turning Bradbury's writing into film and I can't do it. I know there are various adaptations and I'm sure some must be decent, but Bradbury is an author who is talented at narrative for sure, but he really shines in the lyrical, dreamlike, exacting unreality of his turns of phrases.

I am increasingly finding it difficult to believe that Ray Bradbury was a human being born on this planet when and living the life his biographers and Wikipedia page claim. Only a space wizard from another galaxy and dimension, hurled back through time and space to our world would think and write like this. This book was a cry for help, but, much like Tommy Cooper, when he most needed our help we just gave him a round of applause.

This is truly weird, wonderful, and every other positive and strange adjective between here and Mars. I absolutely need to seek out the complete edition with The Other Martian Tales and get back to Bradbury once I have a few other things off my TBR shortlist.

I want to say more, but I can't because if I do I will never stop. This is without a doubt one to the most uniquely exquisite books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. ( )
1 vote RatGrrrl | Jan 18, 2024 |
Showing 1-5 of 287 (next | show all)
"Die Mars-Chroniken" von Ray Bradbury ist ein klassischer Science-Fiction-Roman, der eine Reihe miteinander verbundener Kurzgeschichten enthält, die auf dem Mars spielen. Die Erzählung erstreckt sich über mehrere Jahrzehnte und schildert die Kolonisierung der Menschheit und die Interaktion mit den mysteriösen Marsianern. In den Geschichten werden Themen wie Kolonisierung, kulturelle Auseinandersetzungen und die Auswirkungen menschlichen Verhaltens sowohl auf der Erde als auch auf dem Mars behandelt.

Bradburys poetische und stimmungsvolle Prosa schildert die Wunder und Fallstricke der Erkundung sowie die Folgen von Missverständnissen zwischen Erdbewohnern und Marsbewohnern. Der Roman reflektiert über Themen wie Krieg, technologischen Fortschritt und die Zerbrechlichkeit von Zivilisationen. Während sich die menschliche Präsenz auf dem Mars entfaltet, sind die Marsianer vom Aussterben bedroht, und ihre uralte Kultur zieht sich wie ein roter Faden durch die Chroniken.

"Die Mars-Chroniken" werden für ihren lyrischen Schreibstil, ihren sozialen Kommentar und ihre fantasievolle Darstellung einer Zukunft gefeiert, die Fragen über die Beziehung der Menschheit zu ihrer Umwelt und zu sich selbst aufwirft.
 

» Add other authors (45 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Bradbury, Rayprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Baars, J.Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Bacon, C.W.Cover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Borges, Jorge LuisForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Brick, ScottNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Chambon, JacquesTraductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Eckardt, HansNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
豊樹, 小笠原Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Faint, GrantCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Gardner, MartinIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Goodfellow, PeterCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hoye, StephenNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hoyle, FredIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Johnson, AdamCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Jones, MarieCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Knight, DamonIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lehnig, Hans-JoachimEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Marinker, PeterNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Miller, EdwardIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Miller, IanCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Monzó, QuimTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Mugnaini, Joseph A.Cover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
O'Brien, TimCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pennington, BruceCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Robillot, HenriTraductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Scalzi, JohnIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Snow, GeorgeCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Viskupic, GaryCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Watson, RobertCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Whelan, MichaelCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Epigraph
"It is good to renew one's wonder," said the philosopher. "Space travel has again made children of us all."
Dedication
For My Wife Marguerite
with all my love
First words
One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.
Quotations
"No matter how we touch Mars, we'll never touch it. And then we'll get mad at it, and you know what we'll do? We'll rip it up, rip the skin off, and change it to fit ourselves."
They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle.
They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressures; there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
US title: The Martian Chronicles

UK title: The Silver Locusts

(according to Worldcat.org)
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Fiction. Literature. Science Fiction. Short Stories. HTML:

Mars was a distant shore, and the men spread upon it in waves... Each wave different, and each wave stronger.

The Martian Chronicles

Ray Bradbury is a storyteller without peer, a poet of the possible, and, indisputably, one of America's most beloved authors. In a much celebrated literary career that has spanned six decades, he has produced an astonishing body of work: unforgettable novels, including Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes; essays, theatrical works, screenplays and teleplays; The Illustrated Mein, Dandelion Wine, The October Country, and numerous other superb short story collections. But of all the dazzling stars in the vast Bradbury universe, none shines more luminous than these masterful chronicles of Earth's settlement of the fourth world from the sun.

Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams and metaphor-of crystal pillars and fossil seas-where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn -first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars ... and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is a classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time's passage. In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster once again enthralls, delights and challenges us with his vision and his heart-starkly and stunningly exposing in brilliant spacelight our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.

.

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Contents: Rocket Summer | Ylla | The Summer Night | The Earth Men | The Taxpayer | The Third Expedition | And the Moon Be Still As Bright | The Settlers | The Green Morning | The Locusts | Night Meeting | The Shore | Interim | The Musicians | Way in the Middle of the Air | The Naming of Names | Usher II | The Old Ones | The Martian | The Luggage Store | The Off Season | The Watchers | The Silent Towns | The Long Years | There Will Come Soft Rains | The Million Year Picnic
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