Science Ficton Book Selection

The Martian Chronicles

                              By Ray Bradbury

                                           Originally published in 1950

Summary:

This is a collection of short stories connected together sometimes with a continuing story and other times are loosely connected together with a similar location or event.  It has aspects of science fiction, science fantasy, aliens, robots, ethics, philosophy, voyages, religion, government, war, post-apocalyptic, dystopian fiction, and humanity.  To give a proper summary of this book is difficult and would take away from the brilliance.  So, here are some highlights to peak your reading interest without giving away any spoilers.

Ø  It starts innocently enough with a Martian woman having dreams about a man arriving from earth.  Her verbally abusive and short tempered husband does not like this.  She later begins singing a song from another language and expecting something strange to happen.  Other people start singing different earth songs.  Why are they doing this and how can they cope with this strange event?

Ø  Earth men arrive in a rocket ship, but to no fanfare.  Where are the men who came before them?  The Martians seems to dismiss these men as insane Martins and they are committed to an insane asylum.  What happens when they are proved sane?

Ø  Another rocket ship from earth arrives however Mars looks like Earth from when the crew were kids.  Then they meet their dead friends and family.  Is this heaven?

Ø  Yet another rocket lands on Mars.  They discover the Mars population is almost all dead and their cities destroyed.  The archaeologist on board fears that humans with exploit and destroy the beauty of Mars.  Is he correct or has humans evolved beyond their own greed and need for destruction?

Ø  More and more humans arrive on mars building cities and shaping the world into a utopia.  Is this going to a utopia?

Ø  A human man meets a Martian.  They can talk to each other, but cannot touch each other. They determine that one of them is alive in a different time, but which one is a live in the present?

Ø  A priest worries that earth’s sins will follow humans to Mars.  When he arrives he discovers a new species that the other priests declare useless and unintelligent.  Or are they intelligent? 

Ø  Books have been banned and burned generations ago on Earth, except for some few select government approved books.  Mr. Standoff builds a house on Mars detailing Edgar Allen Poe’s story The Fall of the House of Usher along with other literary aspects.  A man from earth arrives to destroy the house.  Will standoff convince this man that this house represents a new beginning of free thought on Mars?

Ø  Earth erupts in an atomic war. People leave on space ships to Earth to fight in this war.  A few people stay behind on Mars looking for companionship.

Ø  Decades later the war rages on and Earth is almost destroyed and a family goes back to start a new life.  However, back on earth the automatic machines of everyday conveniences still do their duties for a mankind that does not exist.  Do these machines have a purpose anymore without someone to appreciate them?

Elements of Science Fiction:

Plot: The stories in this book represent speculative fiction.  It brings up questions about what if? with an underlining moral consciousness.  Such as, what if earth men landed on Mars?  How would they act?

Characters: The characters in these stories are not well defined.  They do not represent a single character throughout the stories.  Instead they represent ideas, issues, ethics, society, and worlds.  This is designed so that the underlying messages of the stories could be related to anyone, not just a certain characteristic or image.

Frame/Setting: The settings in this book frame the story.  The stories are on earth, mars, and others planes of existence.  The areas are immaculately detailed. The reader's imagination is easily filled with images off alien and earth landscapes along with futuristic machines.

Style/Language: Ray Bradbury's writing style is poetic in its nature.  It is very lyrical.  The lines are written in almost a rhythmic fashion.  Special attention is given to emotions and expressions of ideas.  Some stories are written more as prose, but even these have intensity to them.

Tone/Mood: The mood is somber throughout the stories.  There is an overwhelming heaviness that is represented in the morals and ideals of humanity.  Even when it seems like everything may work out for the best it still feels like there is an underlying message or warning.

Pacing: The overall pacing of the stories is interior in that it is more philosophical and psychological than action.  There are some scenes of action when the earth is being destroyed, but these are toned down.  A part of the slower pacing is the descriptive and intense writing style.

Read-Alikes:

The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clark. Originally published 1951.   

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Originally published 1912.

Martian Time-Slip by Phillip K. Dick.  Originally published 1964.

Ray Bradbury's The Martian chronicles: the authorized adaptation (Graphic Novel) adapted by Dennis Calero.  Published 2011.

Recommendations:

GoodReads gives it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Thomas M. Wagner from SFReviews.net stated "On the whole, this is such a lyrical, haunting, poetic book, with the immersive quality of a particularly vivid dream."

Kirkus Review describes the story "...has an imaginative rather than technical ingenuity."

Blogger Ink Slinger: "I was enthralled from start to finish. Bradbury’s Mars is a world unto itself – a place of marvels beautiful, mysterious, and deadly. And behind it all, reinforcing this imaginative setting, is the breathtaking prose."