Ray Bradbury

Leonard Nimoy

There Will Come Soft Rains, and Usher II

The Martian Chronicles

Shelby Doherty

For use in schools and libraries only. The tranquility of Mars is disrupted by the earthmen who have come to conquer space, colonize the planet, and escape a doomed Earth.

Very well written, but the structure of the book was difficult to adjust to. Each chapter/section is a disconnected story creating a vignette or mosaic of Earth’s destructive colonization of Mars. 

Rachel Stratton

A gorgeous collection of stories of Man, the Destroyer. 

Michael Klepacki

Ada Lu

Sarah Sammis

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury is "half-cousin to a novel" and "a book of stories pretending to be a novel" (Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction by Jonathan R. Eller and William F. Touponce, 2004, p. 111). Those description fit most of Bradbury's books, the one major exception being Farenheit 451 (1953).

The Martian Chronicles has the distinction of being Bradbury's first published book. It is comprised of some previously short stories strong together with other stories to form a coherent future history of the colonization of Mars (or Tyrr as the natives call it).

The timeline goes from January 1999 through October 2026. Along with the rockets to Mars from Earth, there is also the fall of the Tyrrian people to earth borne diseases much as the European small pox was so devistating to the native American groups.

Most of the stories take place on Mars but there are a few glimpses of life (and death) on Earth interspersed with the events on Mars. "The Off Season" (originally published in 1948) reads like the starting point for Steven Brust's Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille (1990) except here it's a hot dog stand and an atomic war. Later on, "There Will Come Soft Rains" (another of the previously published short stories) made me think immediately of Wall-E (Pixar, 2008) except that the robots are all built into a house that has somehow survived the atomic blast in Los Angeles.

Ray Bradbury stories and novels are part of the American psyche. They are taught in schools and have been adapted or referenced so many times it's no wonder that one can see Bradbury's influences in any number of other works.

Cody Degen

3.5 stars, more varied in tone than I expected actually. Always interesting to see what sorts of technology are imagined in the future from writers 50+ years ago

Erik Wallace

Reread this in Jan./Feb. of 2013. Being an X-1 and Dimension X fan it was interesting to read the stories that were adapted from this book that I've heard radio versions of. For OTR fans this book contains: Mars Is Heaven, Ylla, There Will Come Soft Rains, And The Moon Be Still As Bright and more.

Perfect collection of interconnected short stories. Even today, ignites wonder.

Christopher Saw McKaige

Michael Springer

This is a very cool collection of short stories, because they are all centered around a theme (life on Mars), but there is quite a range of story types in here. Some are horrific, some are funny, and the majority of them are very fun.

The tranquility of Mars is disrupted by humans who want to conquer space, colonize the planet, and escape a doomed Earth.

Gillian Rose

I've mentioned it before but I struggle with older sci-fi. Still, I had hoped Bradbury would change that. It was pretty good but I got confused a lot. I'm glad I finally read this book but was expecting more.

Erwin Lemuel Oliva

Martians and poetry

Bradbury's Martian Chronicles is a bold attempt at reimagining life in another planet. But our humanity remained. 

You will not find stories of green Martians here, nor will you see anything that resembles it.

This is a collection of stories and poetry with Mars as backdrop. After all, we do behave differently when we are in an alien

Never has science fiction been so rewarding. 

Adam Scharf

Kirsten Simkiss

This is probably more like a 2.5 star read for me. It's not a bad book, but it's not something I'm likely to ever reread. I'm actually a pretty big fan of some of Bradbury's works, but this just didn't do it for me. Being published in the 1940s, it's understandably dated and the ideas about the realities of Mars are obviously way off, but the concepts of moving to another earth-like planet are interesting enough. Still, it's not something I enjoyed reading.

The stories, overall, are joined by a loose timeline apparently only spanning 20 years of humanity on Mars and the effects they must have had on the planet. Those effects, of course, are to lay waste to everything good that the Martians had built. It's definitely a discussion regarding the destructive nature of capitalistic humanity and how we treat our world around us. There were things that seemed to stay relevant in this day and age, but also things that were far from accurate about our day and age.

The weakest part about this series of short stories were the characters. Only a few are recurring ones, and by the end you have to be reminded of them in order to fully remember who they were. The Captain and Spender are referenced most, but honestly they seem to have had no lasting impact on the society, leaving humanity to rampage through Mars. I actually liked the short chapters regarding the changes on earth and the people leaving the best of all the works.

In the end, this just wasn't the book for me. I found it to be an odd timeline full of unrealistic and uninteresting characters and equally frustrating dialogue. To some, this might be your cup of tea, but it just wasn't something I liked reading. I particularly disliked the story "Way in the Middle of the Air" because of it's obviously dated racism. I'm told that's been left out of more recent editions, likely due to the constant use of racial slurs and stereotyping. Additionally, of all the stories, it shows that Bradbury thought the culture of humanity wouldn't change as much as it clearly has. In that story, the culture was still very much of a segregated world and women's rights were clearly far less than that of men throughout the book. While I get that it was written before any of these changes really occurred, I wish Bradbury had made more of an attempt to predict a different future from his present times, even if it was way off.

Todd Luallen

A collection of stories about Mars written between 1947 and 1952. Much of what Bradbury writes showcases the sentiment of the typical American after two world wars. Tremendous hope for technology, and such despair regarding humanity. I'm not a big fan of collections when it comes to long-form reading, but I did enjoy this glimpse into the mind of mid-twentieth century America. There are some dark stories in this collection, but Bradbury isn't known for his rosy outlook of the future, so you shouldn't be surprised.

2030, les premières fusées quittent la Terre pour un monde nouveau. La colonisation de Mars vient de débuter. Mais, sur la planète rouge, vit déjà un peuple d'une infinie sagesse. Cette antique civilisation devra-t-elle disparaître pour qu'une nouvelle puisse s'épanouir ? Pour les 20 ans de la collection Lunes d'encre, cette réédition collector de Chroniques martiennes - premier ouvrage de science-fiction publié par les Editions Denoël - offre un écrin somptueux au style enchanteur de Ray Bradbury.

Chroniques martiennes

Marion

3.5 ⭐
J'ai beaucoup aimé les premières nouvelles qui ont un humour un peu décalé et WTF. Dommage qu'on perde cette ambiance au fur et à mesure. Néanmoins ça reste sympa et les sujets abordés sont intéressés. Toutes les nouvelles ne se valent pas mais dans l'ensemble c'est un classique de SF agréable à lire.

Allison Garrett

Overall the book was good it just felt more like an anthology to me than a novel. I read this for my 10th grade English class and I really like Bradburys style of writing and all of the stories it was just hard to get into because there were never the same protagonists or characters.

Fraser Simons

Confession time: I super duper conflated this with John Carter. I was very confused for a while, and this certainly exceeded my expectations, which is what I assign 4 star reads. 

A really neat thing about this was there’s like a… directors commentary? I guess? Where, in between each short story, the author puts in a few sentences. At first I thought this would be really annoying but it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome and it’s often really interesting. Especially the context of the stories spring boarding him into other works, such as Fahrenheit. He also talks about how X story is situated in his mind in the 50s, when reactionary elements seeded anti-intellectualism we now see the product of today. But also we’ve come a long way too. it’s quite interesting to me. It’s impossible to separate this from the author as a result; but in the most unique way I’ve read lol. 

I expected pulp action fantasy and stayed for the specificity of theme that makes “good” classics embed themselves in cannon (often). Loneliness, especially, is handled well here. Visually, thematically, and well articulated. As with most “old” sci-fi, the dialogue is the weakest link. I kind of wonder what I’d have rated this without the fascinating commentary and had I not been expecting something completely different. It could have been 3 stars. I’m not sure. Regardless, it’s this kind of serendipity that endears me to plenty of books I remember fondly, so it feels a certain kind of fair.

Pat G.

This was awesome. Not usually a fan of this chronicled format, but it all tied together very well. This is also my first Bradbury.  

It veered hilariously in some places - very unexpectedly - going into some horror which is right up my alley. I was holding my breath a bit when it started getting racial, but was happy to see where it went. 

Philosophical, political, sad, cheerful, enriching, enlightening, dreadful… 
I was surprised at how much variety in the story was packed into these 180 pages. I suspect this is made easier by the format, maybe I’ll try more of these chronicled-style stories in the future. 

Will certainly read more Bradbury after this, he’s a legend after all and I know now it’s for good reason.

Ana V. 

A wonderful classic that can't be skipped by anyone who wishes to write stories, short or long.

Crónicas marcianas

rafael

Desde hace mucho tiempo quise leer este libro. Cuando empecé a leer ciencia ficción, Bradbury era uno de los escritores a quienes se hacía referencia a menudo. Entonces sentí que era casi una obligación buscar sus libros. El primero que leo es "Crónicas marcianas" y dejé en stand-by "Fahrenheit 451". Tras terminar el primero estas son unas breves apreciaciones que puedo compartir.

Las crónicas de Bradbury narran un intento de colonización del planeta Marte. Aquella estrella roja que tanto interés ha despertado en el hombre desde hace... no sé, quizá desde siempre, cuando nuestro cielo, antes del smog, permitía observar más de un astro. Recién en 1975 aterrizaría la primera nave en Marte pero ya en 1950 Bradbury alucinaba, como muchos otros hasta ahora, cómo la humanidad intentaría extender su dominio, su raza, sus anhelos y desenfrenos.

En mi opinión, este libro funciona muy como una advertencia, una alerta temprana, sobre el destino del hombre. Y creo que después de casi 70 años no pierde vigencia. Con tanto debate sobre la crisis climática y la búsqueda de soluciones sostenibles... ¡Vaya! Si solo leemos el diálogo entre Spender y el Capitán Wilder en la crónica "Junio 2001: Aunque siga brillando la luna" nos queda mover la cabeza asintiendo. La crítica social de Bradbury tiene vigencia. No podríamos negarlo. Y es por eso que he podido disfrutar al leer cada crónica. Aunque algunos textos sean un poco predecibles no me parece que hayan perdido ese gancho que empuja a buscar más respuestas en la siguiente crónica. 

Por último, una crónica alucinante es "Usher II". Una compleja y emocionante narración que critica la censura (moral) del arte y adelanta lo que después será "Fahrenheit 451". Pero que al rendir tributo a E.A. Poe y hacer referencia a Orwell, que ya había publicado "1984", y a Lewis Carroll, se convierte en un texto único. Una locura bien narrada. No por nada se titula también "Carnival of Madness". 

Lo recomendaré cuando me pregunten por libros. Asegurado.

Melody Izard

Lots of stories knitted together to make one book. Man has just about used up earth. Looks for new frontiers. Settles on Mars. Takes a while to get that planet just like earth man wants it. But unfortunately it looks like he's coming with some of his same old baggage and has plans for a full takeover.

One of the most disturbing things is that in a earth day set in the future, Bradbury saw the racial relationships staying the same ol' Jim Crow way.

Left my copy in a Little Library on Saint Charles Ave in New Orleans.

Crónicas Marcianas

Karla 

mi reseña completa en el canal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpXV1...

Pranav Mutatkar

Somewhat uneven, but overall haunting with some fascinating ideas on how human beings are agents of destruction.

The Martian Chronicles.

Likes:
- Really like the format (sequential short stories that are all connected)
- Really loved some of the stories in particular
- Enjoyed the anti-colonization take on this (in a time when that perspective maybe have had less popularity), especially from the character Spender
- Quite a sad book overall, overall humans just ruining all the good things in the universe.
- While all of the stories are quite short, it is easy to get invested in the characters and the stories in most cases.

Dislikes:
- Some of the stories weren't all that interesting to me (especially in the middle section)

Christina M Masters

I really can't believe it took me this long to read this book! I was hooked from the very first word. Such amazing stories. They range from the fantastical to the sinister. I would highly recommend this to everyone.

The Martian Chronicles There Will Come Soft Rains, and Usher II

Reviews

Highlights