The Martian Chronicles - (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) by Ray Bradbury (Paperback)

About the Book

Before the advent of space flight, Ray Bradbury had humankind cultivating planets. In "The Martian Chronicles", humanity discovers an ancient civilization on the verge of ruin. This classic work presents tales of human interaction with one another and with the Martians.

Book Synopsis

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is a must-read for any fan of science fiction or fantasy, a crucial precursor to films like Avatar and Alien and books like Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars and Dan Simmons' Hyperion, and a haunting prophesy of humanity's destiny to bring our old dreams and follies along with us wherever we may venture forth.

Soar above the fossil seas and crystal pillars of a dead world in the pages of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. A milestone of American literature, Bradbury's classic collection of interconnected vignettes about life on the red planet diverges from the War of the Worlds theme, in which humanity must defend its shores against its neighbors, for in Bradbury's prismatic vision, humanity is the conqueror, colonizing Mars to escape an Earth devastated by atomic war and environmental catastrophe.

From the Back Cover

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.

Review Quotes

"What has this man from Illinois done that episodes from the conquest of another planet leave me in terror and loneliness, I question, as I close the pages of his book. . . .In this book of phantasmagoric experiences, Bradbury has put his empty Sundays, his American boredom, his loneliness, just like Sinclair Lewis did in Main Street." -- Jorge Luis Borges

"The Martian Chronicles was the first science fiction book to make me feel a character's righteous rage... and the first science fiction book to make me feel loss and loneliness in my gut, doing it without featuring a single human, save as a shadow on a wall... The Martian Chronicles, in short showed me what words can truly do. It showed me magic." -- John Scalzi

"Mars in his hands...is not a place described with scientific accuracy or even much consistency, but a state of mind.... Space ships are not miracles of technology, but psychic conveyances, serving the same purpose as Dorothy's whirlwind-borne house in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, or the trance of the traditional shaman: they get you to the Otherworld." -- Margaret Atwood

"A prescient, lyrical writer with an abiding hatred for intolerance, Bradbury influenced generations of readers and many of our most famous dreamers, from Stephen King to Steven Spielberg." -- Junot Diaz

"How I passed so much of my life without devouring everything Ray Bradbury has ever read is beyond me...on the bright side, how fortunate I am to experience all this for the first time! My God." -- R. F. Kuang