![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: The Martian Chronicles
Author: Ray Bradbury
Published: London: Flamingo, 1995 (1951)
Page Count: 235
Total Page Count: 18,318
Text Number: 54
Read For: My own enjoyment
Short review: Written as a number of short stories that build a coherent arc, The Martian Chronicles is the story of mankind's repeated attempts to colonize Mars. Before man, Mars is populated by a psychic race that is in some ways surprising similar to Earth's western civilizations, a suburban utopia of housewives, gardens, and jobs, but with more complex and ancient arts, histories, and literature. Earth's initially missions are all failures, but eventually the Martian race is wiped out and humans colonize the planet, destroying the old beauty that the Martians leave behind. When Earth begins to collapse in nuclear war, Mars is abandoned, left to a few stragglers and some new immigrants. The whole of the work is varied, and each chapter/short story is different: some expository, some humorous, some scientific, some bittersweet, some about Martians, some about humans. There is something haunting and memorable about the text, the last chapters specifically, and while The Martian Chronicles is not my favorite sci-fi work or even my favorite book about an alien race (that would be Asimov's The God's Themselves), it is classic Bradbury: surreal yet suburban, science-fiction but relevant, ironic, enjoyable, bittersweet, and all in all a good book. I recommend it.
( Long review. )
Posted here to Amazon.com.
Author: Ray Bradbury
Published: London: Flamingo, 1995 (1951)
Page Count: 235
Total Page Count: 18,318
Text Number: 54
Read For: My own enjoyment
Short review: Written as a number of short stories that build a coherent arc, The Martian Chronicles is the story of mankind's repeated attempts to colonize Mars. Before man, Mars is populated by a psychic race that is in some ways surprising similar to Earth's western civilizations, a suburban utopia of housewives, gardens, and jobs, but with more complex and ancient arts, histories, and literature. Earth's initially missions are all failures, but eventually the Martian race is wiped out and humans colonize the planet, destroying the old beauty that the Martians leave behind. When Earth begins to collapse in nuclear war, Mars is abandoned, left to a few stragglers and some new immigrants. The whole of the work is varied, and each chapter/short story is different: some expository, some humorous, some scientific, some bittersweet, some about Martians, some about humans. There is something haunting and memorable about the text, the last chapters specifically, and while The Martian Chronicles is not my favorite sci-fi work or even my favorite book about an alien race (that would be Asimov's The God's Themselves), it is classic Bradbury: surreal yet suburban, science-fiction but relevant, ironic, enjoyable, bittersweet, and all in all a good book. I recommend it.
( Long review. )
Posted here to Amazon.com.
