Amph The Martian Chronicles

In this thread we will talk about The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. Martian Chronicles is perhaps one of my favorite books of all time. I read this book the first time at some point during middle school, maybe around 7th grade, and I have read it at least four times since then and I plan on rereading it again soon. Ray Bradbury is one of my all time favorite authors. He has a very unique and poetic type of writing style. I also love that 1950's vision of Mars and colonization. Silver rocketships, Martians living in cities on the surface, a guy building a hot dog stand on a Martian highway. Fantastic!

Who has read Martian Chronicles? What is your favorite chronicle? Mine is the one where the lone driver on a Martian highway enters into some sort of time warp and encounters a travelling Martian from the past, and they each think the other is from the past.

 

I just read this book over the summer along with Farehite 451. Both were amazingly deep. My favorite was the one where one of the astronauts starts to decipher ancient Mars culture and then goes crazy, killing all the other explorers to keep the Martian's past safe.

Another favorite was when explorers settle down on Mars to find an old fashioned town filled with all their deceased relatives. They're convinced that Mars is Heaven and go to bed happily with their families only to be strangled in the night by concealed Martians.

I believe that both were made into episodes of Twilight Zone, or Outer Limits.

 

I recently read The Martian Chronicles and loved it for Bradbury's beautiful writing style and the eerie tone of the whole work. My favorite stories in the book are probably "Usher II" and "There Will Come Soft Rains" -- the former was a wonderfully creepy tribute to Poe, and the latter was imbued with such poignant emptiness that it almost makes me cry when I read it.

 

There was also a film version of Martian Chronicles, it was a tv miniseries I think, that wasn't nearly as good as the book.

 

I've read the Martian Chronicles at least three times over the course of 40 years and each time I get something new out of it. The TV version of the book wasn't bad but it strove to be politically correct back in the days before we had that tag for things. One of the best stories was called "Way in the middle of the air" and it dealt with all tha African Americans in a small southern town leaving their jobs and going to Mars. The remaining citizens were at a loss as to what to do without them. THere would be no one to do the meanial tasks. I see a parallel to the complaints today about illegal immigrants. If there were no illegal immigrants in the United States there are a lot of jobs that no one wants that wouldn't get done. Bradbury is a wonderful writer and an insightful genious in his own right.

 

Beautiful, beautiful book! I read it... mmmm... too many years ago and it's probably still one of my all-around favorite book. It was the first SF I ever read. My favorite chapter? Night Meeting, followed very closely by Usher II. That last tale introduced me to E. A. Poe.

Edit. Oh, and There Will Come Soft Rains, and The Million-Year Picnic, and...