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The Martian Chronicles Reprint Edition, Kindle Edition
Mars was a distant shore, and the men spread upon it in waves... Each wave different, and each wave stronger.
The Martian Chronicles
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 Man, Dandelion Wine, The October Country, and numerous other superb short story collections. But of all the dazzling stars in the vast Bradbury universe, none shines more luminous than these masterful chronicles of Earth's settlement of the fourth world from the sun.
Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams and metaphor-of crystal pillars and fossil seas-where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn -first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars ... and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.
Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is a classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time's passage. In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster once again enthralls, delights and challenges us with his vision and his heart-starkly and stunningly exposing in brilliant spacelight our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.
- ISBN-13978-0062079930
- EditionReprint
- PublisherWilliam Morrow Paperbacks
- Publication dateMay 21, 2013
- LanguageEnglish
- File size1049 KB
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What's it about?
A seminal work in Ray Bradbury's career, "The Martian Chronicles" imagines a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor, where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a vanished, devastated civilization.Popular highlight
They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle.1,502 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things. The only reason we didn’t set up hot-dog stands in the midst of the Egyptian temple of Karnak is because it was out of the way and served no large commercial purpose.589 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
“Doesn’t an old thing always know when a new thing comes?”576 Kindle readers highlighted this
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Bradbury's quiet exploration of a future that looks so much like the past is sprinkled with lighter material. In "The Silent Towns," the last man on Mars hears the phone ring and ends up on a comical blind date. But in most of these stories, Bradbury holds up a mirror to humanity that reflects a shameful treatment of "the other," yielding, time after time, a harvest of loneliness and isolation. Yet the collection ends with hope for renewal, as a colonist family turns away from the demise of the Earth towards a new future on Mars. Bradbury is a master fantasist and The Martian Chronicles are an unforgettable work of art. --Blaise Selby
Review
From the Inside Flap
From the Back Cover
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.
And then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town. A flooding sea of hot air; it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open. The heat pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children worked off their wool clothes. The housewives shed their bear disguises. The snow dissolved and showed last summer's ancient green lawns.
Rocket summer. The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses. Rocket summer. The warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows, erasing the art work. The skis and sleds suddenly useless. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground.
Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky.
The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land. . . .
February 1999: Ylla
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 yard, and the little distant Martian bone town was all enclosed, and no one drifted out their doors, you could see Mr. K himself in his room, reading from a metal book with raised hieroglyphs over which he brushed his hand, as one might play a harp. And from the book, as his fingers stroked, a voice sang, a soft ancient voice, which told tales of when the sea was red steam on the shore and ancient men had carried clouds of metal insects and electric spiders into battle.
Mr. and Mrs. K had lived by the dead sea for twenty years, and their ancestors had lived in the same house, which turned and followed the sun, flower-like, for ten centuries.
Mr. and Mrs. K were not old. They had the fair, brownish skin of the true Martian, the yellow coin eyes, the soft musical voices. Once they had liked painting pictures with chemical fire, swimming in the canals in the seasons when the wine trees filled them with green liquors, and talking into the dawn together by the blue phosphorous portraits in the speaking room.
They were not happy now.
This morning Mrs. K stood between the pillars, listening to the desert sands heat, melt into yellow wax, and seemingly run on the horizon.
Something was going to happen.
She waited.
She watched the blue sky of Mars as if it might at any moment grip in on itself, contract, and expel a shining miracle down upon the sand.
Nothing happened.
Tired of waiting, she walked through the misting pillars. A gentle rain sprang from the fluted pillar tops, cooling the scorched air, falling gently on her. On hot days it was like walking in a creek. The floors of the house glittered with cool streams. In the distance she heard her husband playing his book steadily, his fingers never tired of the old songs. Quietly she wished he might one day again spend as much time holding and touching her like a little harp as he did his incredible books.
But no. She shook her head, an imperceptible, forgiving shrug. Her eyelids closed softly down upon her golden eyes. Marriage made people old and familiar, while still young.
She lay back in a chair that moved to take her shape even as she moved. She closed her eyes tightly and nervously.
The dream occurred.
Her brown fingers trembled, came up, grasped at the air. A moment later she sat up, startled, gasping.
She glanced about swiftly, as if expecting someone there before her. She seemed disappointed; the space between the pillars was empty.
Her husband appeared in a triangular door. "Did you call?" he asked irritably.
"No!" she cried.
"I thought I heard you cry out."
"Did I? I was almost asleep and had a dream!"
"In the daytime? You don't often do that."
She sat as if struck in the face by the dream. "How strange, how very strange," she murmured. "The dream."
"Oh?" He evidently wished to return to his book.
"I dreamed about a man."
"A man?"
"A tall man, six feet one inch tall."
"How absurd; a giant, a misshapen giant."
"Somehow"--she tried the words--"he looked all right. In spite of being tall. And he had--oh, I know you'll think it silly--he had blue eyes!"
"Blue eyes! Gods!" cried Mr. K. "What'll you dream next? I suppose he had black hair?"
"How did you guess?" She was excited.
"I picked the most unlikely color," he replied coldly.
"Well, black it was!" she cried. "And he had a very white skin; oh, he was most unusual! He was dressed in a strange uniform and he came down out of the sky and spoke pleasantly to me." She smiled.
"Out of the sky; what nonsense!"
"He came in a metal thing that glittered in the sun," she remembered. She closed her eyes to shape it again. "I dreamed there was the sky and something sparkled like a coin thrown into the air, and suddenly it grew large and fell down softly to land, a long silver craft, round and alien. And a door opened in the side of the silver object and this tall man stepped out."
"If you worked harder you wouldn't have these silly dreams."
"I rather enjoyed it," she replied, lying back. "I never suspected myself of such an imagination. Black hair, blue eyes, and white skin! What a strange man, and yet--quite handsome."
"Wishful thinking."
"You're unkind. I didn't think him up on purpose; he just came in my mind while I drowsed. It wasn't like a dream. It was so unexpected and different. He looked at me and he said, 'I've come from the third planet in my ship. My name is Nathaniel York----' "
"A stupid name; it's no name at all," objected the husband.
"Of course it's stupid, because it's a dream," she explained softly. "And he said, 'This is the first trip across space. There are only two of us in our ship, myself and my friend Bert.' "
"Another stupid name."
"And he said, 'We're from a city on Earth; that's the name of our planet,' " continued Mrs. K. "That's what he said. 'Earth' was the name he spoke. And he used another language. Somehow I understood him. With my mind. Telepathy, I suppose."
Mr. K turned away. She stopped him with a word. "Yll?" she called quietly. "Do you ever wonder if--well, if there are people living on the third planet?"
"The third planet is incapable of supporting life," stated the husband patiently. "Our scientists have said there's far too much oxygen in their atmosphere."
"But wouldn't it be fascinating if there were people? And they traveled through space in some sort of ship?"
"Really, Ylla, you know how I hate this emotional wailing. Let's get on with our work."
It was late in the day when she began singing the song as she moved among the whispering pillars of rain. She sang it over and over again.
"What's that song?" snapped her husband at last, walking in to sit at the fire table.
"I don't know." She looked up, surprised at herself. She put her hand to her mouth, unbelieving. The sun was setting. The house was closing itself in, like a giant flower, with the passing of light. A wind blew among the pillars; the fire table
bubbled its fierce pool of silver lava. The wind stirred her russet hair, crooning softly in her ears. She stood silently looking out into the great sallow distances of sea bottom, as if recalling something, her yellow eyes soft and moist. " 'Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine,' " she sang, softly, quietly, slowly. " 'Or leave a kiss within the cup, and I'll not ask for wine.' " She hummed now, moving her hands in the wind ever so lightly, her eyes shut. She finished the song.
It was very beautiful.
"Never heard that song before. Did you compose it?" he inquired, his eyes sharp.
"No. Yes. No, I don't know, really!" She hesitated wildly. "I don't even know what the words are; they're another language!"
"What language?"
She dropped portions of meat numbly into the simmering lava. "I don't know." She drew the meat forth a moment later, cooked, served on a plate for him. "It's just a crazy thing I made up, I guess. I don't know why."
He said nothing. He watched her drown meats in the hissing fire pool. The sun was gone. Slowly, slowly the night came in to fill the room, swallowing the pillars and both of them, like a dark wine poured to the ceiling. Only the silver lava's glow lit their faces.
She hummed the strange song again.
Instantly he leaped from his chair and stalked angrily from the room.
Later, in isolation, he finished supper.
When he arose he stretched, glanced at her, and suggested, yawning, "Let's take the flame birds to town tonight to see an entertainment."
"You don't mean it?" she said. "Are you feeling well?"
"What's so strange about that?&quo...
From AudioFile
Product details
- ASIN : B00CKOQC9C
- Publisher : William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (May 21, 2013)
- Publication date : May 21, 2013
- Language : English
- File size : 1049 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 298 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #124,051 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury, who died on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91, inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screen play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. He was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, among many honors.
Throughout his life, Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932. At the end of his performance Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, "Live forever!" Bradbury later said, "I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped."
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book well-written, easy to get into, and entertaining. They also appreciate the beautiful visuals and humor. Readers describe the plot as wonderful, anachronistic, and terrifying. They appreciate the insightful commentary and originality. They describe the emotional tone as poignant, hopeful, and awesome.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the plot wonderful, providing a good variety of interpersonal relationships. They also appreciate that each chapter is a separate short story that connects in a deep way. Readers describe the book as a great example of science fiction at its best. They find it easy to get into, addictive, and thought-provoking.
"...It's easy to get into and addicting, a very interesting concept, delightfully ironic, a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful..." Read more
"...However, I would still recommend it. It's thought-provoking and terrifying, and even though Bradbury's mythical depiction of Mars looks nothing like..." Read more
"...And Bradbury's Martian Chronicles is a great example of science fiction at its best." Read more
"...I can't remember it's title. Great tale!Always a good read." Read more
Customers find the book well-written, lyrical, and imaginative. They also say it's easy to get into and addicting.
"...It's easy to get into and addicting, a very interesting concept, delightfully ironic, a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful..." Read more
"...Bradbury writes true literature, and often has the voice of a poet...." Read more
"...In story after story, Bradbury writes in simple, almost quaint language, but does so in a way that communicates to the reader his trepidation and..." Read more
"Ray Bradbury is a wonderful writer. Like Aldous Huxley told him Bradbury is a poet...." Read more
Customers find the book wonderful at evoking the imagination. They also say it's an amazing book dealing with humanity, loneliness, and desire for exploration. Readers also mention that the book is brilliant in a simplistic way.
"...It's easy to get into and addicting, a very interesting concept, delightfully ironic, a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful..." Read more
"...However, I would still recommend it. It's thought-provoking and terrifying, and even though Bradbury's mythical depiction of Mars looks nothing like..." Read more
"...Martian Chronicles is a work of wonderful imagination which holds up well all these years after it was written...." Read more
"...Martian Chronicles is a fun and inventive read and a wonderful trip through the imagination of one of the best in the business...." Read more
Customers find the book's content masterful, insightful, and relevant. They also say the message is very true, and they're struck by its prescience and insight. Readers describe the author as remarkable and generous.
"...chapter/short story is different: some expository, some humorous, some scientific, some bittersweet, some about Martians, some about humans...." Read more
"...In each individual story, it’s a quiet, subtle thing, like a warning he’s sending out that he doesn’t really believe will be heeded...." Read more
"...and I ran across a long Wikipedia article on him, chock full of interesting things I did not know, including this quote attributed to Bradbury: “..." Read more
"...But I found it to be disjointed, awkward, not convincing in any manner...." Read more
Customers find the fantasy elements in the book entertaining, enchanting, and exciting. They also say the book rekindles the excitement of reading it 30 years ago.
"...: surreal yet suburban, science-fiction but relevant, ironic, enjoyable, bittersweet, and all in all a good book. I recommend it...." Read more
"...The Martian Chronicles is a fun and inventive read and a wonderful trip through the imagination of one of the best in the business...." Read more
"This book was very fun to read...." Read more
"...man on the planet meeting the last woman on the planet, I found truly hilarious...." Read more
Customers find the book poignant, full of wonder and sadness, with an infusion of hope at the end. They also appreciate the rich imagination and fine sensitivity to the human psyche. Readers also mention the technical detail and suspense were awesome, and the story provides just enough information and graphic description.
"...delightfully ironic, a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful. I enjoy this book and have read it a few times myself...." Read more
"...to walk away feeling depressed, but Bradbury managed an infusion of hope at the end...." Read more
"...Sad and brutal but always full of hopes and dreams. RIP Ray Bradbury. I love your books." Read more
"...Although it is bleak, there are moments of humor, and glints of hope...." Read more
Customers find the visuals of the book beautiful, suspenseful, and dark. They also appreciate the formatting and layout.
"...There’s human beauty and ugliness, fully fleshed aliens and an alien world effortlessly conveyed into our vivid imaginations, satire and broad..." Read more
"...in mind, I said to myself "Yes, pure poetry (prose actually) and it is beautiful." I love his writing!!!..." Read more
"...The imagery of the river is beautiful.This one story makes it worthwhile to buy this particular edition of the book...." Read more
"...But the style was just too contrived. Sorry, I know there are plenty of Bradbury fans who would disagree..." Read more
Customers find the humor in the book different, with some expository, humorous, tragic, and poignant. They also say it's an excellent parody on colonization.
"...It's easy to get into and addicting, a very interesting concept, delightfully ironic, a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful..." Read more
"...Things occasionally get deep, humorous or scary (the Martians give off Lovecraftian vibes in a few places), but remain focused on the behavior of..." Read more
"...Although it is bleak, there are moments of humor, and glints of hope...." Read more
"...It was very weird and the people don't make sense." Read more
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It is hard to discuss or summarize The Martian Chronicles because of the amount of variety from chapter to chapter in the text. Each chapter reads like an independent short story and could even stand alone. However, as a whole the text does build a definitive arc, creating a final product that is greater than the sum of its parts. As a result of this build up, the last chapters are definitely the best of the bunch--they are the ones that will stick with the reader and carry the most impact. They are also the most depressing, surreal, and haunting of the bunch--haunting is a world that I'll use a lot because it really is the best descriptor of the final effect of this book. While early sections are funny and some later sections truly ironic and cynical, the book ends with the remnants of an abandoned planet, creating a story of remorse, memories, and, in the very end, the possibility of hope. The Martian ghost town is an image that sticks with you. It's magical, unreal, and, yes, haunting.
The Martian Chronicles is classic Bradbury in its relevance, however--while the book may end with an abandoned foreign planet, every event implies a lesson and every lesson can be carried over to our domestic culture on earth. Bradbury teaches cynicism, the ignorance and foolishness of humans, our weakness, our hubris (and with it our downfall), the fragility of all people on all planets, and, somehow, ultimately, the human/sentient ability to persevere. It may be about Mars, but this is a very human book. While taking the reader to a foreign landscape, Bradbury ultimately reminds him of his own backyard.
There is a lot of good sci-fi out there, and there are better (more original, more unique) examples of alien races, but Bradbury's Martian Chronicles is still worth reading. It's easy to get into and addicting, a very interesting concept, delightfully ironic, a little bit religious, very spiritual, bittersweet and hopeful. I enjoy this book and have read it a few times myself. I recommend it to others, although there is other sci-fi worth reading too. Pick this one up if the idea interests you or if you like Bradbury's other books.
Some of the characters change the faces of Earth and Mars, some are minor players just trying to do their part and others are lowly individuals scrounging for survival, but their disparate opinions and viewpoints do help to carve out a complete world that I think only manages to fall apart once or twice.
The tone, the dark humor and the sheer creativity on display here would honestly be enough to elicit a five star review, but the central stretch of the book where it suddenly becomes a Fahrenheit 451 crossover novel, along with the overuse of preachy monologues in the final chapter do crack my immersion enough to lower the book's value in my eyes.
However, I would still recommend it. It's thought-provoking and terrifying, and even though Bradbury's mythical depiction of Mars looks nothing like what we now know Mars to be, the picture of a planet he has paints here will forever remain on my list of favorite literary settings.
There was a story, possibly by Bradbury, about the old scifi tales of Mount Shasta and the beings who lived there. I can't remember it's title. Great tale!
Always a good read.
My original copy of Chronicles has long since yellowed out and its pages have fallen apart. While this version annoyingly has advanced the dates well into the 21st century (decades later than Bradbury's original - Why? I don't find Jules Verne or unreadable because it happened over a century ago.), it doesn't drop out chapters and sections that carry offensive, racist, terms. Many modern versions of Chronicles have wrongly removed such chapters, fearing modern readers to be incapable of understanding why offensive language and ideas are important to display, because that is how we learn how indefensible such world views truly are.
This book was written 75+ years ago, so don't expect any high tech discussions - no computers or androids, no warp speeds or all-seeing sensors. We now have rovers on Mars, and we know there are no magical crystal cities once populated by amazing Martians. We know we can't walk on the planet without spacesuits. But what we now know, in no way, detracts from the stories (understand that this is not a novel, but a collection of stories that run in chronological order) and their power to hold a mirror to humankind. At its best, science fiction explores humanity by placing it in situations well-beyond what we have on Earth. And Bradbury's Martian Chronicles is a great example of science fiction at its best.
Top reviews from other countries
Enjoy the story, letting your imagination lead you where it may.
A veces puede llegar a ser un poco complicada su lectura en el idioma original, pero no representa un gran problema. Las historias que relata reflejan algunas de las preocupaciones que el autor tenía sobre la época en la que vivió.