The Martian Chronicles (The Grand Master Editions)
by Ray Bradbury
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ray BradburyEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1984-06-01
ISBN: 0553278223
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Spectra
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780553278224
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of The Martian Chronicles (The Grand Master Editions)
Book Review: Amazing!
Summary: 5 Stars
If I were to write a jacket blurb for this book, it would go something like this:
"Ray Bradbury does it again with another stellar title. This is a novel of science fiction, mystery, beauty, and conflict. Starting with the first rockets to Mars, Bradbury tells the story of Mankind's spreading and fleeing to and from the planet. It is a great story and is not only for science fiction fans but also for anyone who enjoys a good book.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I picked it up thinking it wouldn't be to amazing, but once I picked it up I couldn't put it down. It isn't just another science fiction novel; it's much deeper than that. I would definitely recommend this book to all of my friends. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't willing to read and understand this, because it's a bit higher then comfortable reading level for me, but it's really not that hard. Any extra effort you put into reading this book is generously rewarded.
There really is no major character in this book, because the same person rarely appears in multiple chapters. It is a book of short stories, so this is I picked Captain Wilder of the Fourth Expedition as the "most" main character for two reasons. One, he plays an important part in the colonization of Mars as the captain of the first successful expedition to the planet (there were actually 3 attempts before his success). Two, he is one of the few characters to appear in more than one chapter. I think he is somewhat similar to Tobias MacIvey from A Land Remembered in several aspects. They are both leaders, Tobias of his Cattle Company and Wilder of the Fourth Expedition and the mission to the outer planets, and they are both peaceful but powerful. They rarely fight anyone, and when they do, they never started it, they have a good reason to be in it, and they usually win. They do differ, because Tobias is always trying to make a living and drive cattle and get money, making him a bit more economic-minded than Wilder, who wanted to preserve the natural Martian landscape as it was when they first landed, making him a bit more conservative. I believe these two characters would get along fine. They never pick fights with anyone, so I can't see why they would with each other. If there was any interaction, I think it would be cooperation.
There are many conflicts of all different shapes and sizes in this book, so it is hard to determine the most significant one. I think one of the most major ones is between man and his fellow man. There are many examples of this throughout the book, from one on one struggles to gang fights to full scale wars. The largest of these is an atomic war on earth that destroys the entire continent of Australia in the first blow. Right after that, everyone is called home from Mars and only a handful is left. The book shows no clear resolution to this at the end. As one character puts it near the end of the book, "I take it most of Earth's a shambles, but the war goes on."
One theme of this book is man's nature to ruin beautiful things, especially natural beauty like that of Earth and Wars. Near the middle of the book there is a small chapter who wants to go to mars on a rocket because he is afraid of an "atom war". Later in the book, we have that atomic war on Earth and actually destroy the entire continent of Australia, among other things. With mars, there is a chapter devoted to that too. It says "The rockets came like locusts, swarming and settling in blooms of rosy smoke. And from the rockets ran men with hammers to beat the strange world into a shape the was familiar to the eye to bludgeon away all the strangeness, their mouths fringed with nails so they resembled steel-toothed carnivores, spitting them into their swift hands as they hammered up frame cottages and scuttled over roofs with shingles to blot out the eerie stars and fit green shades to pull against the night." And this is exactly what we do to mars. We kill off the Martian race, and then use their ancient cities for target practice. We then bulldoze what remains and build a city of steel on a once beautiful metropolis. This theme is easily applicable to real life. Basically, the life lesson is to appreciate natural beauty instead of destroying it. That's a moral many people could use.
Summary of The Martian Chronicles (The Grand Master Editions)
Collection of stories about man's attempts to explore and settle Mars.From "Rocket Summer" to "The Million-Year Picnic," Ray Bradbury's stories of the colonization of Mars form an eerie mesh of past and future. Written in the 1940s, the chronicles drip with nostalgic atmosphere--shady porches with tinkling pitchers of lemonade, grandfather clocks, chintz-covered sofas. But longing for this comfortable past proves dangerous in every way to Bradbury's characters--the golden-eyed Martians as well as the humans. Starting in the far-flung future of 1999, expedition after expedition leaves Earth to investigate Mars. The Martians guard their mysteries well, but they are decimated by the diseases that arrive with the rockets. Colonists appear, most with ideas no more lofty than starting a hot-dog stand, and with no respect for the culture they've displaced.
Bradbury's quiet exploration of a future that looks so much like the past is sprinkled with lighter material. In "The Silent Towns," the last man on Mars hears the phone ring and ends up on a comical blind date. But in most of these stories, Bradbury holds up a mirror to humanity that reflects a shameful treatment of "the other," yielding, time after time, a harvest of loneliness and isolation. Yet the collection ends with hope for renewal, as a colonist family turns away from the demise of the Earth towards a new future on Mars. Bradbury is a master fantasist and The Martian Chronicles are an unforgettable work of art. --Blaise Selby
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