The Martian Chronicles (1950)

The Martian Chronicles (1950)

Author: Ray Bradbury | Page Count: 305 [1]

'The rockets came like locusts, swarming and settling in blooms of rosy smoke. And from the rockets ran men with hammers in their hands to beat the strange world into a shape that was familiar to the eye...'

TMP is Bradbury's account of mankind's attempts at colonising and taming the mysterious red planet. Like some of his other books, it's a 'fix-up novel', a collection of individual short stories that were penned over a number of years and later collected together with a newly written bridge narrative, a kind of literary glue.

He revised a few of the shorts and added intercalary chapters to help it better fit a novel's structure, but some discordance remains - none of which, it must be said, is enough to belittle the concept, in general.

Bradbury's Mars isn't the dusty, desolate, and craggy landscape that we've come to accept as the norm in modern sci-fi stories. It's ornate, delicate, an organic but equally stylistic extension of the planet's mystery and its peoples' imagination, which manifests as the kind of harmony that seems to exist perpetually out of mankind's reach.

The beautiful shining rockets that the earthmen arrive in are a symbolical contrast to their objective. The men's goal is colonisation, a home away from home. Each expedition is unique — as the Martians try different things to deter the newcomers and preserve their own way of life — but what's common throughout is the feeling that where mankind goes, so too does the shadow of conflict that resides in their hearts, imprinted histories written in blood. If the visitors aren't stopped, the new world could become just another Earth, with identical social problems.

Besides the obvious themes of culture and colonisation, Bradbury weaves in musings on religion, racism, philosophy, loss, redemption, hope, fear of the unknown (and of the known), and many others that when considered together explore the human condition from various perspectives.

There's a gradual shift in viewpoint, from the Martian's angle, mostly, to that of the astronauts and the subsequent human settlers, with each in its own way encouraging reader sympathies.

I've seen The Martian Chronicles hailed by many critics as a classic of the sci-fi genre, with some even asserting that's it's Bradbury's masterpiece. I'm not of that same mind, on either claim, but I enjoy the book for what it is: a first 'novel' with ideas and themes that extend beyond their basic dictionary definitions, from a storyteller who would go on to be a master of his chosen craft.

Various editions have been put out by a number of different publishers over the years, but not all volumes include the same stories; e.g., in the standard UK edition Usher II — a story about censorship, control, and the freedom of ideas — was removed and The Fire Balloons — a story about priests wanting to bring their religion to the ancient Martians, as if it's a good thing — was added in its place. The justification for the removal was allegedly to allow the latter story room, (24 and 28 pages, respectively) and seeing as how Usher II was included in the UK edition of Bradbury's The Illustrated Man just two years later, I see no reason to challenge the claim.

[1] The pictured Harper Voyager edition (UK / 2008 / ISBN: 9780006479239) respects the original expedition dates and has The Fire Balloons in place of Usher II. The full list of stories is: Rocket Summer; Ylla; The Summer Night; The Earth Men; The Taxpayer; The Third Expedition; —And the Moon Be Still as Bright; The Settlers; The Green Morning; The Locusts; Night Meeting; The Shore; The Fire Balloons; Interim; The Musicians; Way in the Middle of the Air; The Naming of Names; The Old Ones; The Martian; The Luggage Store; The Off Season; The Watchers; The Silent Towns; There Will Come Soft Rains; The Million-Year Picnic.

Below is additional info for fellow bookish folks, or simply people who care about such things. The same info exists on many other websites, but I'm adding it anyhow because it's useful to have in one place, and is certainly stuff that I'd want to know prior to making a purchase:

In a dickish move that ignored the fact that the book was written in 1950, a 1997 edition changed all of the chronicled dates, pushing the first given event from 1999 to 2031, and every year thereafter by the same thirty-two year margin. In that same edition a story about racism in contemporary US culture, titled Way in the Middle of the Air, was removed, due to it's thematic 'topical' nature being allegedly less relevant to a modern audience. That's publisher doublespeak for literary revisionism by those with means... otherwise the readership might have to actually contextualise things for themselves, and that could lead to anarchic free-thinking. -_-

On a related note, see the story titled The Other Foot that's in The Illustrated Man (1951). I don't know if Bradbury ever referred to it as a genuine sequel to Way in the Middle of the Air, but it certainly seems to be one, albeit set twenty years later on the red planet itself.

A much-expanded hardback edition containing an additional twenty-three shorts that weren't present in the standard versions was released in limited numbers by Subterranean Press in 2009, titled The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition (ISBN: 9781596062863). Sadly, it's overpriced and uses the ridiculous revised dates of the 1997 version. A second printing with a different cover later emerged, but no cheaper (i.e., affordable) paperback version followed.