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Amber asked this question about The Martian Chronicles:
In 2015, is there still anything relevant to appreciate about The Martian Chronicles? I personally found it mired in quaint, unimaginative ideas about what another planet and other intelligent beings might be like, and I wasn't particularly bowled over by its underlying philosophical ideas either.
Γείτων This book is nowhere near "what another planet might be like". Mars is Bradbury's symbolism of alien or foreign civilisations. The whole concept is to…moreThis book is nowhere near "what another planet might be like". Mars is Bradbury's symbolism of alien or foreign civilisations. The whole concept is to demonstrate how western civ, deals with people that have a different culture. The main point is that instead of learning from others we try to impose what's right on them. It was a huge deal in the era of modernism and it still is, as the way we treat other countries/civilisation is still modernistic.

If you approach it as a sci-fi book, it has nothing to offer, but this is because it is not sci-fi, it is just a chronicle of how America thinks and acts in the present tense.

I generally believe that trying to judge the Martian Chronicles as a Sci-Fi and focusing on it's ideas about "Mars", is kind of like judging the Animal Farm as a documentary and discussing it's ideas about life in a "farm". Not the point at all(less)
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The Martian Chronicles
by Ray Bradbury
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