Customer Reviews

Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles

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Ray Bradbury is one of the best-known science fiction writers of two generations ago. His distinctive soft-science style helped to offset science fiction's early flood of space operas and narrative physics homework problems. By some definitions it isn't even science fiction, but by any standard it is good story-telling. This collection of 28 stories is set on--or on the way to--Mars in the years 1999 to 2026. These years are the unknown future for readers and the writer looking forward from the 1950s.

Interesting snippets of this future Martian history from the past include:

In "Rocket Summer" a departing expedition to Mars causes a sudden climate change.
In "The Summer Night" the poetry of Earth is heard on Mars for the first time.
"The Third Expedition" lands on Mars and is greeted by familiar faces.
Young boy explorers become "The Musicians" in an old Martian village.
"The Luggage Store" sees a surge in travel after news of a war on Earth.

The science in these stories is old, but this matters less than usual in dated science fiction because they aren't really about the science. Readers are left to decide whether the view of human beings from half a century ago may have become dated. It is worth reading these stories to wrestle with that very question.

This is a great book and it came to me in great condition. I bought it as a gift for my dad and he really likes it so far.

Since it was my summer reading assignment, I didn't expect that it will be so interesting. This book is great!