The Martian Chronicles

I love this book for its poetic, dreamlike quality. Bradbury’s writing pulled me in and didn’t let go, painting a picture of Mars that was both beautiful and tragic. As a pre-teen and a teen, in my imagination, I had red dust stuck to my feet, and I was there with the characters. What captivated me was the way the stories felt timeless—each one was like a snapshot of a moment layered with meaning.

I felt like I wasn’t just reading a book about colonizing Mars; I was exploring humanity’s deepest fears, hopes, and regrets. We have companies only today… show more.

I liked this book because it's a collection of stories about unrelated people's exploits, real and imagined, as they work together to make their mark in a new frontier.

The stories portray amazing accounts of people ranging from the mundane to the supernatural. It's one of the last stories to describe Mars with a somewhat hospitable climate, and that doesn't matter.

The incredible storytelling of Ray Bradbury makes anything that his characters are doing always believable no matter where they are because he writes from the heart.

No one creates ambiance like Ray Bradbury. It’s his superpower.

I read this at thirteen and remember feeling the loneliness of that desolate planet in my bones. You feel this book, the melancholy, the magic, the wonder of it as Earth sends ships to colonize Mars. There’s a sadness to it as things don’t go the way the humans expect, but there’s also pleasure in this land refusing to be conquered.

A book that deeply shaped the way I think of society and growth. (Note that Bradbury probably wouldn’t call this a fantasy. But I say any book that… show more.

Ray Bradbury is a master storyteller of science fiction whose works have been embedded in my brain for years.

I remember reading this book (compiled, rewritten, and edited from some of his other works) and much later loving the television show that had been created from it.

It’s set in the 21st century when Earth began its colonization of Mars, a prospect that some in our troubled society hope will actually happen.

Bradbury suggested it wouldn’t end well.

I consider this an alien invasion novel where humans are the invaders. The plight of the Martians was enough to make me stop and think. I couldn’t help noticing that Bradbury was softly making a point about the suffering of Native Americans. This story continues to make me mindful of the fact that there are two sides to every conflict. 

Readers sometimes forget how dark much of Ray Bradbury’s work was, whether it’s the pyromaniac firemen of Fahrenheit 451’s blistering dystopia or the historical resonances of The Martian Chronicles. In these linked stories, Bradbury sets out a future Mars in which, much as happened in the Old West, a native civilization is first displaced and then eradicated by human settlers. Before long, Mars is strewn with garbage, with only the ghosts of the former inhabitants to remind the unheeding settlers of what they’ve lost. It turns out, as Bradbury explains, that while we can leave Earth behind, we can… show more.

The Martian Chronicles is a literary classic that transcends the speculative fiction genre. Bradbury creates thought-provoking tales that work on their own merit and together in an overall story tapestry. With three-dimensional characters, dynamic dialogue, and picturesque settings, The Martian Chronicles is a masterpiece and it served as a primary influence on me in writing my book.

Well beyond the fascination of Mars and space, and the master Ray Bradbury’s writing, The Martian Chronicles holds a special meaning to me. I was born in 1950. That same year Charlie Brown was born and The Martian Chronicles was published. A large Peanuts coloring book was my first venture into reading. And Bradbury’s classic later became the first ‘real’ book I read. Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang taught me how to read. Ray Bradbury taught me how to dream. His story of space travel and life on Mars turned me into a certified outer space buff and fired… show more.

This is a collection of short stories which detail Earth’s attempts to colonize Mars in the early 21st Century, and the parallels to early settlers' attempts to settle the West in the 19th Century are purposeful, with the Martians representing the Native Peoples of the West. Bradbury’s writing is very poetic and full of metaphors. The stories that form The Martian Chronicles are timeless ones that remind me of the best of The Twilight Zone, and Bradbury wrote for the TZ.

Ray Bradbury's masterful collection is less a look at how to solve the problem of visiting and colonizing our neighboring planet and more a look at how such an enterprise will affect humans as people. Not only will noble and brave humans go to Mars, but humans with selfish desires. Humans will bring memories of their hometowns and lost loves. Humans will bring their conflicts, and there is a real danger they'll do harm to Mars in the long run. While the book focuses on Mars, Bradbury imagines exploration of other worlds in the solar system. The book comes from… show more.