The Martian Chronicles
Ray Bradbury

Gather around children, gather around. In our galaxy's fourth planet named after the God of War, Bradbury created a landscape worthy of vignettes coming from invading Earthmen. Wait, that's too simple and yet not enough to describe this treasure. Just pick it up and immerse yourself in Martian atmosphere, imagine the hot, burning sands and populate it with Earthmen. What will you see? What will you imagine? A paradise full of people starting a new life? A throng of people wanting to escape Earth? A bunch of priests hoping to convert the last few Martians to Christianity? What will be your Mars like?

Bradbury's Mars, written almost sixty years ago is filled with that and more I am awed and yet wanting in writing this post. Well, I easily get stumped in posting about books anyway because really, how many ways can you state "I love it, buy it or read it" without sounding like a paid hack. Still, I love it, buy it or read it. Hahaha!

Consisting of twenty-seven short pensees or Shakespearean asides as Bradbury puts it, spanning from January 2030 to October 2057 The Martian Chronicles tells the tale from the first unsuccessful expedition to Mars (only a handful of stories where we come face to face with Martians in the entire book) up to the time where a family of five reaches the planet from their own personal rocket from Earth. Gee, their own personal rocket for interstellar travel. That sounds so cool I'd like to have one. But I digress.

There is no one true narrator. It varies from every tale which gives us different perspectives from time to time. But I do have some favorites from the lot.

Night Meeting. A story about a chance meeting with Martian along a deserted highway. And the lovely words below are from that:

There was a smell of Time in the air tonight. He smiled and turned the fancy in his mind. There was a thought. What did Time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain. And, going further, what did Time look like? Time looked like snow dropping silently into a black room or it looked like a silent film in an ancient theater, one hundred billion faces falling like those New York balloons, down and down into nothing. That was how Time smelled and looked and sounded. And tonight - Tomas shoved a hand into the wind outside the truck - tonight you could almost touch Time.

The Fire Balloons. Priests from Earth comes to Mars to convert the last few Martians and find themselves face to face with them. Will their mission be successful? I have to admit that I've read this one before, in Bradbury's The Illustrated Man, last year. Given that I've yet to finish that book (more like delaying gratification of sorts as I wanted to get other Bradburys before I finish that one because I was enjoying it way too much), I was surprised to find that the same story is included here. Still, this one is as moving as ever and should be read by anyone claiming to believe in their own rightful gods.

The Wilderness. Because it's about love and longing for the beloved who is so far away, on another planet in fact, and deciding further on to follow him there and leaving everything behind here on Earth. Short and sweet yet full of different emotions.

Usher II. It is 2036 and it's only now that we get a glimpse of what it's like on Earth and realize it's a different one from what we have right now. The morally righteous, called well The Moral Climate banned fantasy in all shapes and sizes. Books, films, comics and what-have-yous. No more Poes, no more Lovecraft, no more Bierce, no more fantasy! It's like seeing a glimpse of Fahrenheit 451 in this tale. Books, films nay entire libraries are burned in the Great Fire of 2006. So the handful of those who adored fantasy are now in Mars. One of them, Stendahl, built a house on Mars which is an exact replica of Edgar Allan Poe's house in the The Fall of the House of Usher story. It's a demented tale of horror and revenge. Funny but I enjoyed it immensely. Anyone wanting to ban or burn any of my fantasy books, any so-called morally upright citizen who starts telling me what should be read deserves to suffer. I loved the Poe references. Good thing I read the Poe stories referred to here. Hahaha!

The Luggage Store. Short story about longing for Earth upon hearing of the upcoming war there. Enough said.

There Will Come Soft Rains. Inside the house of the future everything is automated, controlled by a computer. It churns out perfectly made breakfasts, cleans the dishes and the house after with robots, pipes in music for enjoyment with even a poem or two added for the relaxation, and the garden tended to perfection. But there's no one there.

The Million Year Picnic. A family of five made it to Mars from their own personal rocket. The parents with three young boys. The boy Michael wanted to see a Martian. At the end of the story he finally saw one.

I think I posted way too much already. But this I have to say; Bradbury can take you to places you've never dreamed of and you emerge from his world hopefully a changed person, or at the very least a recognition of what's important in life. Because even if the setting is Mars, even if the book is titled The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury writes about us, people, what we do to ourselves wherever else we go.

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This is my fifth book for the Speculative Fiction Challenge hosted by Renay under the category A Theoretical Handbook for the Unseasoned Speculator.