The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950)

Bradbury's Mars is a land of dreams, hope, crystal pillars, and fossil seas-where a finely grained dust settles on the wonderful, barren cities of a silently demolished civilization. Here, the earthlings invade and come to commercialize, despoil, to grow, and to learn. First a trickle of humans came, then a cascade, fleeing from their world with a seemingly non-existing future with a promise of tomorrow. The Earth people take over Mars ... and then are shortly conquered by it, becalmed by dangerous falsity of familiarity and comfort, enchanted by the loitering beauty of an extremely ancient, and mysterious native Martian race. Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is a classic work that is not questionable. However, it didn’t appeal to me all too much. Ray Bradbury’s imagination and literary skills are why he’s one of America’s favorite authors; he is a truly remarkable author whose work will remain undimmed by time’s passing.

This book is obviously from the 50’s because the theme/s of this novel has already been used in plentiful amounts of science fiction books. Since this book was also from a time with strong feminist and racist thoughts, it disturbed me to read these parts of the Martian Chronicles. The sequence of short stories was not appealing to me because they were all superb ideas and every one of the stories making up this book could have been an incredible book themselves. It’s kind of random and spazzy I think, to have such a variety in one novel.

In the late 20th century, rockets from earth began arriving on Mars. The Martians tried to defend themselves and their planet with their telepathic abilities, at one point they projected a false projection of a town inhabited by the absent relatives of one rocket’s crew, but they are gradually killed off by the exposure to chicken pox, their bodies have no way to protect this from happening. Earth-men start arriving on Mars and settling many communities. The reasons for these exploring men coming to Mars are different, but all view Mars as a planet that exists solely for their usage and purposes when they don’t even realize the culture and beauty that is the Martians and their planet.

Bradbury’s writing style is impressively unique. A majority authors are distant, unknown, and unimportant beings that are somehow or distantly connected to the story. Ray Bradbury, on the other hand, is very much present in all (or what I have read) of his literary work. After reading and analyzing what Mr. Bradbury has to say, you can visualize and understand him as a person. The many varying component that consist of Mr. Bradbury’s writing style. Only you can decide if it’s for you or not.

In conclusion, this series of short stories is about Earthmen traveling to the planet Mars, they soon discover about the Martians that live there. They play to use the planet for their own selfish human needs as if the planet belongs to them. The Martians tried defending their planet, culture, and over all population with their telepathic abilities. Mr. Bradbury’s writing style is a classic, one of America’s most beloved writers whose work and creativity will remain a favorite unchanged by time.