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Jun 23, 2008

Christy rated it:

Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles is a lovely, lyrical collection of short pieces about the human colonization of Mars and its consequences, beginning just before first contact and ending after the death and destruction of most of the population of both Mars and Earth.

Since this is a collection of stories and vignettes instead of a novel, the central, guiding element of the book is not a character or set of characters; instead it is the setting and the emotion evoked by Bradbury's More...

2 comments like (21 people liked it)

Aug 23, 2008

Sharon rated it:

Ray Bradbury's book The Martian Chronicles may be a sci-fi thriller, but it's rated as a classic for decades. This was my first time through, and the prose was fresh and beautiful. The stories, strung together, recount the colonization of Mars in the 21st century, a New World populated and provided for by Earth with all the comforts and confusion of home.

The Mars and Earth Men are trapped in mentalities that don't allow them to really meet each other. The violence is unremitting fro More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Elizabeth rated it:

I vividly remember reading this book. I was in 8th grade and I read it in Mrs. Zimmerman's class. She was this bizarre ageless woman who wore her jet-black hair in a crusty bee-hive and had gobs of pastel green eye shadow on her eyelids. She also had a rusty voice-like an ex-smoker, and spoke really slowly. She could have been a character in Martian Chronicles. I still kind of wonder if she was human.

Anyway, I read this book over and over. There was something so pristine about the w More...

0 comments like (17 people liked it)

Nov 10, 2011

Heidi rated it:

Ray Bradbury's stunning prose and innovative ideas bring Mars to life. Written in the late 1940s, at a time when Mars was reachable but still mysterious, when intelligent life on Mars was possible, and when the Space Race was just beginning, The Martian Chronicles abounds with optimism about mankind's great technological future. But at the same time, written by a man heavily influenced by two great wars, the book almost weeps with worry about mankind's eventual end.

The prose is exc More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 24, 2011

Mary rated it:

In this collection of stories, Bradbury proposes some ideas of what reaching and colonizing another planet might look like. His ideas are interesting but his writing is pretty weak. The characters are thin and behave strangely at times, and he doesn't choose to offer explanations of the larger issues at work, such as the technology that would make the travel possible or the issues that cause his political conflicts. His ideas are clearly more important to him than the way he expresses them. Of c More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 01, 2011

Steffanie rated it:

What a strange book. Strange enough, where my imagination could barely handle it. But that's a great thing!

The beginning was a bit of a struggle, because it was absolutely nothing new. Simple writing, cliques and it was just too obvious. I did try to put myself in the mindset of someone reading it when it was published, before Sputnik ever launched. The simplistic obviousness that bothered me a little, wouldn't have bothered me before being used to Doctor Who, Stargate, and all More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 01, 2011

Adam rated it:

I remember a copy of this book floating around my house when I was a kid. I remember it always being there, a clear and present option for me to read, a book whose cover I liked and that I looked at on occasion but that for some inexplicable reason I never actually sat down and gave a chance. Maybe I'm forgetting, though, and maybe I did try reading it and it simply didn't pull me in because it wasn't what my then-self wanted or expected it to be. Maybe I wasn't old enough to appreciate it at th More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Brendan rated it:

I hadn’t read this book yet — I know, that’s sad — so I thought I’d give it a whirl. Bradbury tells a series of stories that document the rise and fall of humankind on Mars. It’s a compelling collection, with good lessons about the dark side of humankind and our tendencies toward new things (particularly the American approach to the world). Some thoughts:

* The book actually comes off as more of a fantasy of “another planet” than of Mars itself, since we’ve now mapped enough of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 22, 2011

Nicolas rated it:

Encore une lecture récente, des Chroniques Martiennes, de Bradbury (à moins que ce ne soit Spinrad).
Est-il encore nécessaire de présenter ce roman d'une poésie bouleversante ?
Est-il encore besoin d'en dire la très profonde réflexion sur le genre humain et sur la modernité ?
Je ne le crois pas. C'est l'un des plus authentiques chef-d'oeuvres de la sf, peut-être même le plus beau roman de sf. Certes, l'action n'y est pas palpitante, il n'y a pas de héros, au sens traditionnel d More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 19, 2010

Greg rated it:

The Martian Chronicles is like a magic trick: the more times I read it, the better it gets. It is wonderful, beautiful, moving, and heartbreaking unlike any other science fiction novel I’ve ever read, possibly any novel of any genre. Sure, it’s going on 60 years old. The technological inconsistencies with today’s world of space flight are a product of that. But, in short, it just doesn’t matter. Like all good novels, The Martian Chronicles aren’t about what the title and cover illustration More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Nov 19, 2008

Jonathan added it

"Who are we anyway? The majority? Is that the answer? The majority is always holy is it not? Always, always; just never wrong for one little insignificant moment, is it? Never ever wrong in ten million years? He thought: What is this majority and who is in it? And what do they think and how did they get that way and will they ever change and how the devil did I get caught in this rotten majority? I don't feel comfortable. Is it claustrophobia, fear of crowds, or common sense? Can one man be More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 25, 2008

Lettie rated it:

This was one of the books I discovered when I was in high school, as I methodically made my way around the school library fiction section, A to Z. With this book, I fell in love with science fiction. I also fell in love with the range of emotion it evoked in me. It was a revelation to me that a story could make me feel other than happy, and still be well worth reading -- even if it made me feel sad, or uncomfortable, or disquieted. Thus I grew into a love of literature.

Perhaps I More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 20, 2011

Karly rated it:

This is possibly one of the best books ever written. A collection of short stories, this book assembles in to a larger picture of space travel to Mars, and it's relationship to earth. But this is more than just sci-fi. Bradbury's stories are poignant social narratives which speak to more then the era in which they were written. From race(/species) relations to human imperialism, the loneliness of technology and the fragility of biological life, the power of human fear; the themes in this boo More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 23, 2011

Dorothy rated it:

Oh I just love this book. I actually remember that this was the book that got be back into avid reading again after a very long dry spell.

The earth has been devastated by atomic war and humans head out to Mars to make a new world for themselves, which appears to already have sentient life living on it. These are the chronicles of that contact and conflict. It is worth mentioning that The Martian Chronicles is a short story cycle rather than a novel proper. Each story can conceivabl More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 01, 2011

gabe rated it:

If you liked War of the Worlds, you'd like this. It's more 'cartoony' than that, but it's the same type of understanding/idea that people seemed to have had about space and Mars in the time of War of the Worlds.

It's wild and out there, but of course Bradbury seems to be able to get away with anything; Pushing the boundaries of reality around at will, and then clinging to others when convenient.

Also, it's very interesting that these are a bunch of shorts he wrote (or mostly More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 11, 2008

Andrew rated it:

This is one of my favorite collections of Bradbury's. This book completely changed my attitude towards Sci-Fi. If you haven't experienced the poetry that is Ray Bradbury, you are in for a revelation. "The Million Year Picnic" is one of my favorite short stories ever. But each piece in this book could be my favorite- they are that transcendent. One of the things I loved about this book, too, is that even though it was written in the 1940's, Bradbury was anti nuclear-weapons and pro More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 11, 2012

Adam rated it:

I remember a copy of this book floating around my house when I was a kid. I remember it always being there, a clear and present option for me to read, a book whose cover I liked and that I looked at on occasion but that for some inexplicable reason I never actually sat down and gave a chance. Maybe I'm forgetting, though, and maybe I did try reading it and it simply didn't pull me in because it wasn't what my then-self wanted or expected it to be. Maybe I wasn't old enough to appreciate it at th More...

0 comments like

Feb 17, 2009

Loren rated it:

From ISawLightningFall.com

Mars fascinates us. We’ve probed and photographed our neighbor for years but never managed to visit in person. Our pulp prophets have launched thousands upon thousands of occupying armadas from its orbit, their commanders green-skinned and tentacled and wanting to be taken to our leaders. Ray Bradbury, though, gently subverts fact and expectation in The Martian Chronicles, with humanity becoming both explorers and invaders of the Red Planet.

Chron More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2009

Kevin rated it:

This is a repost of my Martian Chronicles book review I wrote some time ago. What with deleted myspace accounts (now too numerous to mention) and the advent of time, I thought it appropriate to repost. Re-reading your own stuff can help to keep you sane, or your mind relativily intact; it reminds you, to some small extent, of who you were (or even are) in the past. I loved the Martian Chronicles when I was a teenager, first being exposed to it from the TV mini-series back in the early 1980's; I More...

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Jan 27, 2012

Tracey rated it:

"It is good to renew one's wonder," said the philosopher.
"Space travel has again made children of us all."

Having just finished Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and with it fresh in my mind I thought I would write a book review which is something I haven't done in a while.

Science Fiction isn't something that I read regularly- in fact I have probably only ever read a handful of books from this genre in my life so far.
However, t More...

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Jan 11, 2012

Nemesis rated it:

“Chi siamo noi per voler scandagliare quanto accade? Siamo qui. Che cos'è la vita, del resto? Perché e per chi si fa questo e quello? Tutto ciò che sappiamo è che siamo qui, vivi ancora, senza far domande”.

Appena pensiamo al termine “fantascienza” la prima immagine che ci viene in mente è l’invasione del nostro pianeta da parte di esseri provenienti da altre galassie o da alti luoghi sperduti nello spazio.
Bene, proviamo ora a stravolgere quest’idea e proviamo a pensare che gli in More...

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Dec 18, 2011

Justin rated it:

While reading this, I couldn't figure out if it was a genuine attempt at science fiction or a satire of contemporary science fiction. The Martian Chronicles had been recommended to me by someone, I forget who, after I said I wanted to become more familiar with science fiction and Ray Bradbury, who wrote one of my favorite books from my high school years, Fahrenheit 451.

I'll admit there was a certain level of disappointment in how poorly the book has aged, specifically in regards to t More...

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Dec 01, 2011

Karen rated it:

Bradbury, Ray. The Martian chronicles. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958. Print.

Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is a science fiction read about the behavior of Martians and humans immigration to Mars. The book begins with a Martian couple arguing over the wife’s dream of a rocket landing on Mars. The man in the rocket turned out to be a human astronaut who wanted to take the wife (Ylla) to earth. The Martians, in particular, Yll (the husband) murders the humans through s More...

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Dec 01, 2011

Keyla added it

"I know, we came up here to get away from things - politics, the atom bomb, war, pressure groups, prejudice, laws - I know. But it's still home there. You wait and see. When the first bomb drops on America the people up here'll start thinking. They haven't been here long enough. A couple years is all. If they'd been here forty years, it'd be different, but they got relatives down there, and their home towns."
The Martian Chronicles is a history of the settlement of Mars by E More...

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Nov 30, 2011

Jeff rated it:

I am pretty sure I read this as a teenager, but it did not much appeal to me. Now though I was much more capable of reading this book and appreciating it. I found it simply wonderful and brilliant. I can understand why this book did not affect me as a teenager as I wanted wiz-bang SF stories with lots of action, but the Martian Chronicles read more like poetry in a sense with a profound understanding of human nature.

The connected stories of this book often reminded me of Twilight Zo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 23, 2011

Bettie rated it:

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Nov 15, 2011

Scotty rated it:

This collection of short stories is another one of my favorite pieces of writing, and helped to establish Ray Bradbury as my most revered author. The stories tell of a series of expeditions from earth to Mars, in anticipation of the end of our planet. Bradbury creates an environment on Mars that is many things: beautiful, serene, vast and untouched, yet with a lurking sense of terror and danger. Bradbury is an expert of setting and description, depicting Mars in a way that feels very believable, More...

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Nov 09, 2011

Alexandra rated it:

The Martian Chronicles was written and published in May 1950 by Ray Bradbury. I enjoyed the story very much, for its visual depiction, perspective, and main idea. The only thing that I did not like was how I began to loose some interest in the story somehwere in the middle. Motivating myself to read further changed my attitude and I began to gain interest again.
The story begins with a woman named Ylla who wakes up from a very far-fetched dream about "A man with blue eyes and black ha More...

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Oct 14, 2011

Robin rated it:

Ray Bradbury is a storyteller without peer, a poet of the possible, and, indisputably, one of America's most beloved authors. In a much celebrated literary career that has spanned six decades, he has produced an astonishing body of work: unforgettable novels, including Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes; essays, theatrical works, screenplays and teleplays; The Illustrated Mein, Dandelion Wine, The October Country, and numerous other superb short story collections. But of all the More...

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Sep 13, 2011

Noëlibrarian rated it:

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