The Martian Chronicles

Some day finally came for “The Martian Chronicles.”

Ray Bradbury’s classic anthology/short story collection/novel has been on the must-read list … some day … for years. 

Through a series of vignettes, Bradbury tells the story of Earth people settling neighboring Mars, overcoming the red planet’s indigenous inhabitants then doing everything in their human power to turn Mars into a substitute Earth while our third planet slips into chaos and nuclear war.

Bradbury’s structuring of the story is ingenious. Instead of following one protagonist, or even one group of protagonists, each section or chapter introduces new characters, or the occasionally recurring character or two, to advance the story. Each segment usually has its own theme or mini-plot driving the overall storyline.

Readers meet a Martian couple who, other than certain cultural differences, are remarkably like the invading humans they foresee. Then there are doomed crews who attempt to set up camp on Mars, then there’s the establishment of a base, the downfall of the Martians, the invasion of the humans, the restructuring of Mars to resemble the cultures of Earth, etc. 

Bradbury takes a look at how we perceive memory, race relations, the loss of loved ones, how we treat literature (with hints of his masterpiece “Fahrenheit 451” in one segment), etc. Again, with each tale propelling the overarching plot of a dystopian future forward.

Though that dystopian “future” is now largely in the past. 

“The Martian Chronicles” was published in 1950. The book is set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the final segments stretching to that distant year of 2026. Still, the story/stories of “The Martian Chronicles” are timeless because people then and now, on Earth or on Mars, are basically the same.