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Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles

veggiedog

veggiedog

New Member
I couldn't find another thread for The Martian Chronicles, so I decided to start one. I'm not very far into it yet, but I really like the imagery Bradbury creates.

Anybody else read it?
 
Not yet, the funny thing is we were just talking about it yesturday :) Some friends were telling me that I should read it or atleast something by Bradbury. I have Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes in one of my stacks here, I think my husband read them and sent them to me but I've not got to them yet.
 
I also read it. I L-O-V-E Ray Bradbury. His book Fahrenheit 451 is on my favorite book list. I also loved Something Wicked This Way Comes, From the Dust Returned, Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man, and his short stories.
He is amazing, and even though he had the descriptions of Mars wrong (he wrote it before we had pictures of the surface), the place he described was very intriguing. He has an amazing ability to draw you into his story with a sentence. I don't know how he does it. Magic maybe. ^-^
 
ValkyrieRaven88 said:
I also read it. I L-O-V-E Ray Bradbury. His book Fahrenheit 451 is on my favorite book list. I also loved Something Wicked This Way Comes, From the Dust Returned, Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man, and his short stories.
He is amazing, and even though he had the descriptions of Mars wrong (he wrote it before we had pictures of the surface), the place he described was very intriguing. He has an amazing ability to draw you into his story with a sentence. I don't know how he does it. Magic maybe. ^-^
Click to expand...

Yay! Another groupie! Unfortunately, as of yet, I haven't gotten around to reading much of his stuff. The other other book by him that I've finished is Fahrenheit 451 which I LOVED (despite its being required reading), and a few of his short stories. In my Lit class, we had a choice of several different books to read about the 'American Dream' (The Great Gatsby, Native Son, Of Mice and Men, etc.) and I chose this one, although obviously it isn't set in America. For those of you who have read Bradbury, you know why.

The only complaint I have about this book as of yet is that it is very fragmented. The stories feel like they have been written completely independent of each other (which I suppose they might have been) and don't seem to completely fit together. Of course, I'm only about 25% of the way through--I guess I'll have to finish it before I try to get the big picture. The opening stories are a little far-fetched with the Martians having telepathic and hallucinogenic powers, but I think it gets more realistic further into the book.

As far as the American Dream goes...so far I think that this book has a lot to do with exploring new frontiers and making discoveries, even in the face of danger, loneliness, insanity, etc. Tell me what you guys think.
 
Reply

Yes, the Bradbury stories were often written separately for magazines, then compiled later when Bradbury realized that he had a theme. The African Veldt story I believe is one of the most redone stories. It was published a few times, and then it has almost constantly been redone in media (I have heard a few radio presentations, seen it in the "Illustrated Man" movie, and seen it done on a few television anthology series).

The other writer that has novels similar to Bradbury is Simak who wrote my favorite book, "City." He does not get the attention of Bradbury, but he also wrote numerous shorts for magazines that later were shown to be developments of the same characters and story arch.
 
The chapter "Way in the Middle of the Air" is a model of the craft of writing a short story.

In addition, the book's anti-colonialist theme was ahead of its time.
 
veggiedog said:
Yay! Another groupie! Unfortunately, as of yet, I haven't gotten around to reading much of his stuff. The other other book by him that I've finished is Fahrenheit 451 which I LOVED (despite its being required reading), and a few of his short stories. In my Lit class, we had a choice of several different books to read about the 'American Dream' (The Great Gatsby, Native Son, Of Mice and Men, etc.) and I chose this one, although obviously it isn't set in America. For those of you who have read Bradbury, you know why.

The only complaint I have about this book as of yet is that it is very fragmented. The stories feel like they have been written completely independent of each other (which I suppose they might have been) and don't seem to completely fit together. Of course, I'm only about 25% of the way through--I guess I'll have to finish it before I try to get the big picture. The opening stories are a little far-fetched with the Martians having telepathic and hallucinogenic powers, but I think it gets more realistic further into the book.

As far as the American Dream goes...so far I think that this book has a lot to do with exploring new frontiers and making discoveries, even in the face of danger, loneliness, insanity, etc. Tell me what you guys think.
Click to expand...
The Martian Chronicles is a set of short stories about Mars.
 
He did intend The Martian Chronicles to be a collection of short stories, but he was told by his publisher than people don't want stories--they want novels. So Bradbury, noticing that the stories fit together nicely, created some smoother transitions between them and published the book as a novel in stories. I read it as more of the collection of short stories. Each story describes a completely different place. While they all carry the same vague plotline (travel to Mars) each Mars is illustrated as a completely different place from the previous. I don't know if Bradbury intended this as depiction of varying perceptions, or if he didn't want to ruin the stories by changing the settings, or if he had some alternate motive. It meaning wouldn't be the same if it had been written differently.
 
I saw the movie version years ago on television. I almost purchased the DVD version, so that I might watch it again. One scene stuck in my memory. It was the ghost of a Martian in a deserted city. The ghost explained that, from his perspective, the others are ghosts. The idea seemed like parallel worlds or realities, and each appears to the other as illusion.

Did anyone else see the movie version of Marian Chronicles and remember this scene?
 
I actually have a DVD set that's a bunch of Bradbury's short stories. It has The Crowd in it, which I enjoyed because it's one of my favorites. *grabs it to give more info*
OK, it's called The Ray Bradbury Theater. It's over five hours long. These are the short stories on it.
1. The Crowd
2. Marionettes, Inc.
3. The Playground
4. The Screaming Woman
5. The Town Where No One Got Off
6. Banshee
7. The Coffin
8. Gotcha!
9. The Emissary
10. The Man Upstairs
11. The Small Assassin
12. On The Orient, North
13. The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl
 
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