The Red Planet. It’s been widely recorded humanity’s fascination with the unknown, and the infinity of the universe. What is out there? And who? Will we ever get there? When? And how? Will we ever find out? Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles is the diary of mankind’s strange and amazingly disastrous attempts to visit Mars, first for curiosity, and then for necessity! Published separately in small parts through several years, the Martian Chronicles consists now of 26 short stories, averaging 1 to 10...

Forget the sci-fi label. This is magnificent, seductive storytelling that just happens to be set mostly on Mars. It’s beautiful, brilliant, startling. It drips with deliciously poetic imagery (and references great poets/poems). It raises profound questions, uses odd analogies, and features dark tragedy, comedy, big ideas, and interesting plots.At times, the weird unreality reminded me of Jabberwocky: I understood, even when it shouldn’t quite make sense. It comprises more than a dozen, almost se...

The Martian Chronicles is a book I have heard about for years, but ended up passing it by in lieu of other Ray Bradbury classics (do you need to qualify them by saying “classic”? I think that goes without saying). I have now finally read it and it is amazing. I continue to be impressed with Bradbury’s writing style – and his style is very well defined. I am pretty sure he is so integrated into how and what he writes, I could probably guess that a book is written by Bradbury after just a few para...

I enjoyed this short story collection a lot more than the famous Fahrenheit 451. I believe Ray Bradbury has an exceptional talent with writing short stories. I was expecting the stories to be something different than what I read, a bit more Science Fiction. Yes, it does have a bit of space travel, some alien encounters, some "hi-tech"technologies but those details are totally not the point of these stories. I guess the main idea I got can be summarized by the following quote: “We earth men have ...

"We earth men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things." This brilliant collection of science fiction short stories combines elements of humour and tragedy to show us how much man must learn, as such a very dim view of human society is evoked in these pages. Before he enters the world of the Martian, he has a lot of developing to do. Bradbury suggests that Martian culture has transcended its human counterpart; the Martians have accepted an almost animalistic ethos in which they...

"Nosotros, los habitantes de la Tierra, tenemos un talento especial para arruinar las cosas grandes y hermosas."Corría el año 1947 y un joven de 27 años llamado Ray Bradbury tenía en su cabeza una mezcla efervescente de ideas, que fue acumulando en cuentos, bocetos de novelas y muchas cosas más; pero aún no era no era conocido en el ambiente literario. Había escrito varios cuentos que entrelazaban sus historias con el planeta Marte, y quiso el azar que se cruzara con uno de los más importantes e...

The Martian Chronicles is a science fiction book but it demonstrates intensity and imagery of the best poetry.They had a house of crystal pillars on the planet Mars by the edge of an empty sea, and every morning you could see Mrs. K eating the golden fruits that grew from the crystal walls, or cleaning the house with handfuls of magnetic dust which, taking all dirt with it, blew away on the hot wind. Afternoons, when the fossil sea was warm and motionless, and the wine trees stood stiff in the y...

RIDDLE ME A MARTIAN RIDDLE۞A Riddle: What walks on two legs, uses two arms, talks like a human, acts like a human, kills humans, replaces humans, wants to be accepted and loved by a human?Answer: A Martian!۞A Riddle: What walks on two legs, uses two arms, talks like a human, acts like an animal except that's unfair to animals, kills others of its kind, wages war on its own kind, and destroys its own planet?Answer: A Human!۞A Riddle: What is built like a succession of linked stories, feels at tim...

Poetic fantasy. Being set in the future and involving space travel, Mars and futuristic technology makes this sort of fit into the science fiction genre, but Bradbury is a writer of literature. This is beautiful writing and Bradbury is an artist with a mastery of the language. Mars could be another dimension, or fairy land, it does not really matter, Bradbury has concocted an alternate reality to explore psychological ethos. If Heinlein is the science fiction ideologist / sociologist, and Clarke...

"We earth men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things."The Martian Chronicles, a perfect example of what I'd call a 'quintessential Bradbury' - fragmentary, at times disjointed, occasionally crossing the line into the realm of surreal, full of his trademark nostalgia and sadness, this account of the failed American Dream approach to the exploration of the ultimate frontier never stops fascinating me and drawing me in with its inexplicable charm. (Side note: as a person of Slavic descent,...