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Ray Bradbury Message Board


Olbe0012 posts on 9/5/2007 10:09:16 PM These short stories are powerful, some more than others. They deal with racism, life, death, love, and even the environment. Are we being shown the future or a reflection of our past? Do the stories hold important truths or are they just stories? No matter how you look at them, they touching and, sometimes, ugly in how they show us ourselves.
moore633 posts on 8/25/2007 4:44:02 PM Bradbury's Martian Chronicles in one of those novels that makes you reflect on the choices of our civilization. A master in his own right, he follows the original form of Science Fiction using multiple short-stories to build one plot. This book forced me to look at the way that humans have chosen to live and the traits that I, personally have adopted from our race. I enjoyed the different levels on which Martians and Humans met and each "moral" lesson I seemed to find in each section of the book (i.e., the first expedition, second, and so on.) As another poster on this site suggested, it forces us to look at the not so savory traits, beliefs,and actions of our race. An excellent read by a brilliant mind.
john6449 posts on 8/23/2007 1:50:47 PM The Martian Chronicles is one of those books that is well known and recognized within the sci-fi community, but it is littered with some of our most undesirable human traits. The book was written in the 1940's so maybe incorporating gender stereotypes was just a product of his environment, but I still think it is brash to assume that an alien species would have a male dominated society. Examples can be seen in Mr. and Mrs. K's relationship, Sam and Elma, and even Walter and Genevieve. However, I do like how accurate his description of our environmental habits are. It's not a far stretch to say that we're on the way to global nuclear war... Anyone else find it interesting that some of the stories from The Martian Chronicles were first written in other publications?



schw0809 posts on 7/25/2007 11:36:16 PM This book really grabbed my attention right from the beginning. It deals with the curiousity that people have with other life forms in outer space. What if they do exist and if so how do they live? What kinds of special powers do they have that we as humans don't? These questions always arise when thinking about outer space and the book jumps right into these questions. I also like how the book subtly suggests that the human race is greedy and destructive. It only makes you think about how it is so very true and how it is not a topic that is commonly discussed. I am a fan of Ray Bradbury and I knew his book was going to be a good read.
schle193 posts on 7/18/2007 10:29:27 PM I was suprised that I could not put this book down! I usually enjoy reading non-fiction, so this was far from typical for me. I really liked the characters, especially the maritians at the begining of the book. I actually was hoping throughout the book that Ylla would come back into the story so I could hear more of what happened with her. The ending was really surprising to me as well; It was great, but I guess I expected that the martians had invisible powers as well as telepathy and that they would show up and kill all of the humans. For some reason, none of the human characters, or race in general, in this book really earned any respect so I was cheering for the martians. I wish there was a sequel....
Firewing CC she posts on 7/3/2007 7:44:07 PM ,,lhh hhh m,,m hghg mmhg vv mm,hvtf fg g fg
juett013 UMD posts on 7/3/2007 7:32:16 PM This book grabbed my attention from the very beginning. The first few pages with the table of contents already made me wonder because of the dates and everything that was on there. As I came to understand why each was titled that way, I thought of how original the book is. Well, at least it is to me. I have never read a book like this before. I loved each little chapter of life and the individual stories. Starting off with a quick goodbye to Earth, you read the story of Ylla. A woman controlled by her husband and treated like she wasn't all there. After reading a few stories, namely The Earth Men, I began to think that maybe her husband thought she was mentally ill as well and the guys that were coming to land were just her imagination projecting itself. The story of The Earth Men really frustrated me. How do you convince someone you are not crazy if they have it in your head you are? Anything you do that might be normal on someone else becomes incriminating on you. I was shocked when Mr. Xxx shot the captain and the rest of the crew. He didn't even think the crew was real. I really couldn't believe when he killed himself because he thought that he had become infected with the captain's illness because his telepathy was so strong. A few stories go by and you find out most martians were killed by the chicken pox. Then you find a human and a martian both claiming to be alive at the same time. This book was a pleasure to read because it really makes you think about what is out there and how the minds of others, even on our own planet, really works.
bpellaton posts on 7/2/2007 9:29:39 PM I thought this was a very intresting book. A theme that is throughout the book is that we humans like to make things constant. We don't like change very much and a lot of people don't like to think outside there comfort zone. We are always trying to change things and people to make them be more like we are. This book also makes a point that us humans don't care about the enviornment much.
dahl0687 posts on 6/30/2007 12:23:14 PM I really enjoyed reading this book. It really makes you realize how the human race just takes over. We don't really let things just be the way they are if they aren't our way. We think we are making things that a great better, but really, we take away all the aspects and the foundation that the world was created on and make it the way we want it.
tthomps4 posts on 6/13/2007 10:51:46 PM What I find so intriguing about this book is its theme of humans encountering aliens, with traditional roles reversed. In this book it is really the humans that are the aliens. Consider that this series was written back in the late '40s/early '50s. The nascent sci-fi genre dealt almost exclusively with one themes of aliens as marauders who are much more advanced and powerful than we are. In the "Martian Chronicles", it is Earthlings who land on a neighboring planet as the aliens, and wittingly or not, ultimately destroy the native inhabitants of that planet.
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