The Martian Chronicles
by Ray Bradbury
First published 1950 · English · 222 pages
- Short stories
- Science fiction
A linked collection of stories telling how humans travel to Mars, settle it and change it. Early expeditions meet a Martian civilisation that is strange, subtle and not easily conquered. Later come towns, colonists and the habits of home carried to a new world, while Earth faces troubles of its own. Bradbury uses the red planet as a mirror for loneliness, greed, nostalgia and hope. The book is less about rockets than about people, and it helped make science fiction a form of poetic and moral reflection.
Quotes
We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things. The only reason we didn’t set up hot-dog stands in the midst of the Egyptian temple of Karnak is because it was out of the way and served no large commercial purpose.
…at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle. It’s all simply a matter of degree.