Books - The Martian Chronicles

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	Books - The Martian Chronicles

The Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction book by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by refugee humans from a troubled Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists. The book lies somewhere between a short story collection and an episodic novel, containing Bradbury stories originally published in the late 1940s in science fiction magazines. For publication, the stories were loosely woven together with a series of short, interstitial vignettes. Bradbury has credited Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio
and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
as influences on the structure of the book. He has called it a "half-cousin to a novel" and "a book of stories pretending to be a novel."

The book was published in the United Kingdom in 1951 under the title The Silver Locusts, with slightly different contents: the story "Usher II" was removed, and the story "The Fire Balloons" was added.

The Martian Chronicles was made into a TV miniseries in 1979, which Bradbury found "just boring."

Rocket Summer (January 1999)

First published in Planet Stories, Spring 1947.

The stories of the book are arranged in chronological order, starting in January 1999, with the departure of the first expedition. Rocket Summer is a short vignette which describes Ohio's winter turning briefly into summer due to the extreme heat of the rocket's take-off.

Ylla (February 1999)

First published as I'll Not Look for Wine in Maclean's, January 1, 1950.

The following chapter, Ylla, moves the story to Mars. Ylla, a Martian woman trapped in an unromantic marriage, dreams of the coming astronauts through her powers of telepathy. Her husband, though he pretends to deny the reality of the dreams, becomes very jealous. He kills the two-man expedition as soon as they arrive.

The Summer Night (August 1999)

First published as The Spring Night in Arkham Sampler, Winter 1948.

This short vignette tells of Martians throughout Mars who, like Ylla, begin subconsciously picking up stray thoughts from the humans aboard the Second Expedition's ship, which is approaching their planet.

The Earth Men (August 1999)

First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1948.

Tells of the "Second Expedition" to Mars. The astronauts arrive to find the Martians to be strangely unresponsive to their presence. The one exception to this is a group of Martians in a building who greet them with a parade. Several of the Martians in the building claim to be from Earth or from other planets of the solar system, and the captain slowly realizes that the Martian gift for telepathy allows others to view the hallucinations of the insane, and that they have been placed in an asylum. The Martians they have encountered all believed that their unusual appearance was a projected hallucination. Because the "hallucinations" are so detailed and the captain refuses to admit he is not from Earth, Mr. Xxx, his psychiatrist, declares him incurable and kills him. When the "imaginary" crew does not disappear as well, Mr. Xxx shoots and kills them. Finally, as the "imaginary" rocket remains in existence, Mr. Xxx concludes that he too must be crazy and shoots himself. The ship of the Second Expedition is sold as scrap at a junkyard.

The Taxpayer (March 2000)

First appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

A man insists that he has a right to be let onto the next rocket to Mars, because he is a taxpayer. He insists on being let on the ship so strongly because the Earth will be having a great war soon, and no one wants to be around when it happens. He is not allowed on the ship.

The Third Expedition (April 2000)

First published as Mars is Heaven in Planet Stories, Fall 1948.

The arrival and demise of the third group of Americans to land on Mars. This time the Martians are prepared for the Earthlings. When the crew arrives, they see a typical town of the 1920s filled with the long lost loved ones of the astronauts. The next morning, sixteen coffins exit sixteen houses and are buried. These opening chapters are the strangest of the whole collection and conclude any detailed discussion of Martians and their abilities.

(The original short story was set in the 1960s and dealt with characters nostalgic for their childhoods in the midwestern United States in the 1920s. In the Chronicles version, which takes place forty years later but which still relies upon the 1920s nostalgia, the story contains a brief paragraph about medical treatments that slow the aging process, so that the characters can be traveling to Mars in the 2000s but still remember the 1920s.)

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