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    Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles: A Radio Dramatization
    Unavailable
    Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles: A Radio Dramatization
    Unavailable
    Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles: A Radio Dramatization
    Audiobook5 hours

    Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles: A Radio Dramatization

    Written by Ray Bradbury

    Narrated by The Colonial Radio Players

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The people of Earth are preparing for war—a war that could potentially destroy the planet. Explorers are sent to Mars to find a new place for humans to colonize. Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor—of crystal pillars and fossil seas—where a fine dust settles on the great empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn—first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

    Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is presented here as a full cast audio production with an original music score and thousands of sound effects by the award winning Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air. It marks their fourth collaboration with one of the most celebrated fiction writers of our time—Ray Bradbury.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJun 7, 2011
    ISBN9781455816385
    Unavailable
    Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles: A Radio Dramatization
    Author

    Ray Bradbury

    Ray Bradbury (22 August 1920 – 5 June 2012) published some 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems since his first story appeared in Weird Tales when he was twenty years old. Among his many famous works are 'Fahrenheit 451,' 'The Illustrated Man,' and 'The Martian Chronicles.'

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    Reviews for Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      I give this five stars in my first encounter in my teens. Now that I've read a dozen or more books from this idiosyncratic, American, wild science fiction and mystery and Hollywood nostalgia author, I dig other books better. But, boy ... Boy.
    • 3/5
      The numbers grew steadily in proportion to the census of Earth Men already on Mars. There was comfort in numbers. But the first Lonely Ones had to stand by themselves.

      Bradbury's work here can be read as a suicide note, a confession extracted at the end of a gun. Despite the conformist prosperity of the 1950s, it wasn't a hopeful time for many people. I am obviously not referring to minorities. The successive world wars and devastation of Europe and Asia were still present, though the sides had now changed and technology now offered the hand of God to the bold. Von Braun managed that shift without blinking, space appeared a cozy alternative to whatever batshit dogmatism we could manage down here. Martian Chronicles often shimmers but is largely stale. Perhaps that is the pioneer's fate. My favorite episode is when the black people all leave the South for the unknown of Mars. The hollow idiocy of racism stands there flummoxed, gaping at the heavens.
    • 4/5
      I listened to the audiobook and in the introduction the author tells the reader how the Chronicles came to be. He also tells the reader that this is not science fiction because there is no science. It is a collection of short stories that are at the same time good prose, philosophy and story telling. The stories share some connections and are about colonizing Mars by humans from earth. Time period covered is from the 2000 to 2026. The author wrote them as short stories but later was encouraged to publish them as a book so there are some short vignettes to connect the stories. I think the publishing date is 1950 for the first edition by Doubleday. The genres are considered to be Science fiction, Post-apocalyptic fiction, Horror, Dystopian fiction. There is a lot of literary influence in these stories. Bradbury said the John Carter of Mars books and Harold Foster's 1931 series of Tarzan Sunday comics had such an impact on his life that "The Martian Chronicles would never have happened" otherwise. Bradbury cited the Barsoom stories and Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson as literary influences. I liked the Fire Balloons that addresses evangelism and Christianity and the concept of sin in other beings. Especially interesting was Usher II which addresses censorship and moral police (House of Usher, Poe) and would later be revisited when the author wrote Fahrenheit 451. And the last story, The Million Year Picnic, reminds me of an Adam Eve type story. Over all, you can tell that these stories are dated and the audio was good but not exceptional in any way. While the stories are dated you can still recognize how a book written in 1950 contributed to a lot of current literature and it does capture the age it was written (cold war, fear of blowing up the earth, rocketry). Rating 3.875
    • 5/5
      A piercing - yet still loving in many ways - look at human nature through the idea of the colonization of Mars. Bradbury's writing is stunning, of course.
    • 5/5
      Across the ancient sea floor a dozen tall, blue-sailed Martian sand-ships floated, like blue ghosts, like blue smoke.'Sand ships! But there aren't any more, Elma, no more sand ships.''Those seem to be sand ships,' she said. But the authorities confiscated all of them! They broke them up, sold some at auction! I’m the only one in this whole damn territory's got one and knows how to run one.''Not any more,' she said, nodding at the sea.The best thing about this book, is the atmosphere of calm, of dying civilisations that no longer struggling to stay alive. The stories have an elegaic quality, whether the protagonists are Martians or Earthmen, even though there is violence some of the stories.The only story I remembered in much detail from the last time I read it is "The Third Expedition", with the stunned expedition members finding what seems to be an old-fashioned Ohio town on Mars, when they land their rocket on the lawn of a Victorian house. Other memorable stories include "Way Up in the Middle of the Air", "The Martian", "The Silent Towns" and "There Will Come Soft Rains", the last of which I have read more recently, or maybe heard narrated on a podcast.
    • 4/5
      Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is a novel of science fiction, set in a future extrapolated from the society of the 1950s. This vision of the future explores both humanity's nature, and its relationship to technology. In doing so, it follows in the tradition of Mary Shelley and Nathaniel Hawthorne, by questioning what the increasing sophistication of our sciences and arts mean for society. It is clear from the outset (when the first expeditions cross immense distances in their rockets) that technology has brought mankind new powers – but the way these powers are used are not necessarily for the good of all.As well as the deleterious impact which the mere presence of humans seems to have on the native population of Mars (their numbers dwindling even as they struggle to repel the invaders), mentions of war and conflict start to appear as the humans settle. In particular, the spectre of nuclear war lingers over the human societies which are established on Mars, inescapable even through the vastness of space. The suggestion is that men have brought their warlike natures with them.The chronicle which is most tellingly ambivalent about the technologies of the future is the beautiful “There Will Come Soft Rains”, which tells the story of a house. This house has all the affordances of advanced technology, such as automatic ovens, story-telling machines, metal cleaning rodents and a panoply of helpful gadgets. These devices play on to their own set schedule, even when it is clear that no humans remain — the technology outlives its masters, and is seen to be indifferent to their fate. The eventual destruction of the house by fire paints a vivid image of a technological apocalypse.It is interesting to speculate how much this dystopian mood was inculcated by the society of the 1950s, where the world had recently survived a convulsive war in which technology played an unprecedented role. However, the importance of the work means that it is not just of its own age — it is a book for all the ages of man.
    • 4/5
      The book reads like a group of short stories but all put together makes one big storyStoryline: In the future, people go to Mars to make it a new “Earth” since they’ve done a great job destroying Earth. Martians get sick with human diseases and die. We ruin Mars just like we ruined Earth. A war breaks out on Earth. . .I enjoyed this book but it has a lot of warnings for us.Warning 1: Don’t destroy our Earth, it’s the only one we have.Warning 2: Stop the racism and prejudices.Warning 3: Don’t be so afraid of the unknown.Martian Chronicles was a short read that could be seen as depressing sci-fi. I read it in high school but definitely have a better understanding of the novel now, as an adult.Thanks to Sarah Says Read for reading it with me! (I know, Sarah, it took me forever to get this post up since we read it a while ago!)Have you read The Martian Chronicles?Thanks for reading,Rebecca @ Love at First Book
    • 5/5
      I just love Ray Bradbury. He has a way of making you think about the subjects he writes in a different and unique way. Each story is packed with a multitude of underlying questions of ethics, revenge, and the definition of people. It's been a long time coming for me reading this book, as it was one of my blind spots. Excellent, fantastic, and well worth the wait.
    • 5/5
      Man this book got me thinking!!! And quite frankly it was a little disturbing. But that being said it was really good! Probably one of my favorites!
    • 4/5
      I read this in honour of the author's passing last week. It contains some interesting things about the clash between Earth and Mars civilizations and shows the Martians in an uncompromising light in using psychological means to stop humans from colonising their planet. In the latter parts, this becomes a clear message, dating from the early days of the Cold War, of the horrors of nuclear war, as humans who have settled on Mars return to Earth to take part in the conflict, so that both planets end up being deserted. All that said, I didn't find this really satisfying as a novel as there are no three dimensional characters throughout and you never really get a true feel for who the Martians are and what they are like. 3.5/5
    • 3/5
      Written as a series of interlinked stories in the middle of the twentieth century, the book tells the story of the first expeditions to travel to Mars, and its subsequent colonisation by people from Earth. But this Mars is not the planet that we know, but a canal crossed desert planet older than Earth, with a thin but breathable atmosphere, inhabited by an ancient civilisation. It's the Mars of H.G. Wells and other early science-fiction writers and it's very appealing. It doesn't matter to me that it's factually incorrect.I found that the stories have dated to some degree, with the social structures very much those of America in the 1940's and 1950's. In the main this didn't worry me too much as I think that you need to judge books according to the values of when they were written - it's no good looking at a 60 year old book and expecting it to be written in the same way as a contemporary novel.In the main I think my main problem with the book was in its depiction of the character of the first explorers and colonisers. Despite mainly seeming to consist of scientists and engineers of one sort of another, with very few exceptions the members of the early expeditions have hardly any curiosity about the planet which they have arrived at or about its inhabitants. In the story 'The Earth Men' for example, the members of the Second Expedition are disgusted to find that instead of being given the ticker tape parade that they seem to be expecting, they are treated as madmen for claiming to come from Earth. At no time do they show the slightest interest in what is around them, or consider that the Martians might reasonably be something other than delighted to see them or might even be hostile. They come over as a group of petulant small children who are upset at not being given a toy after doing something clever. As the colonisation of Mars continues it's obvious that Bradbury is making a point here about the effects of contemporary society, as the human colonisation on Mars starts to have as detrimental an effect on that planet as humans have had on the Earth of the book, but it just seems rather overdone.
    • 4/5
      Not so much a novel as a collection of interrelated short stories arranged so as to form a somewhat cohesive narrative, The Martian Chronicles (as Ray Bradbury says) also isn't so much science fiction as fantasy set on Mars but with a clear allegorical-thematic connection to real-life, present-day issues. Most of the stories are quite good, such as "Usher II" which anticipates Fahrenheit 451 with a story of censorship and resistance to totalitarian bureaucracy, as is the book taken as a whole.The one major issue that is a little hard to swallow, even on the books own terms, is why practically all the human settlers of Mars, many of whom left Earth precisely to escape the threat of war, would return to Earth as soon as war actually breaks out. Bradbury sort of attempts to explain this, but doesn't really succeed.Still, the Martian Chronicles is a classic of fantastic literature, a virtuoso display of Bradbury's talents, and well worth reading. If you've yet to experience it, get it now!
    • 4/5
      Ray Bradbury, I am a fan! Prior to reading this, the only other work I had read of his was Fahrenheit 451, which was great. This continued the trend of sci-fi awesomeness. In a collection of short stories, Bradbury reveals the colonization of Mars from various points of view. Inherent in all this was the idea, that humans generally come by, muck things up with their industrialization of things, then leave behind a path of destruction (*cough* global warming). Each story blended together, creating a very cohesive and entertaining history of what happened on Mars. Enjoyed this so much, decided to pick up another Bradbury book, stay tuned.
    • 4/5
      This collection of short stories about man's attempts to colonize Mars was compelling both for the wide range of styles and approaches to story as well as for the themes explored. All the stories are set on a timeline in the 21st century, and while some have elements in common, such as a character or event being referred to in two stories or more, each story is quite unique. Many of Bradbury's concerns are very typical of the era in which these tales were written, namely the 1950s, when the Cold War and the threat of a nuclear holocaust were pressing concerns. With this collection, he explored subjects such as identity, violence, racism and xenophobia, bureaucracy, psychiatry, environmental issues, ancient civilizations, social studies, and religion, among others. While this is widely considered a work of science fiction, there are plenty of elements of fantasy, but even those not particularly interested in either of those genres will find much to entertain and ponder upon in this unique collection. Stephen Hoye did a wonderful job of narrating this particular audio version.
    • 4/5
      This is a collection of Ray Bradbury's Mars colonization stories which were originally published in pulp magazines over a period of a few years. They are independent of each other in plot, but it is fascinating how Bradbury managed to pull them all together in a cohesive whole which told a story in itself. This book is considered the bridge between classic pulp science fiction (which targeted lowest-common-denominator audiences) and the more thoughtful and sophisticated modern science fiction. The stories have the same raw imagination as pulp, but each one tackles one or more social issues as well. The stories are fast and fun, and yet intriguing. My favorite story is about two missionaries bent on saving the Martians from sins that we humans haven't even imagined yet. The philosophical discussion of sin and the ironic use of Christian symbolism meshed surprisingly well with the sf-pulpy imagery. Bradbury also touched on evils-of-colonization, race-relations and xenophobia, and politics...to name but a few issues. I was also impressed by Bradbury's expectations of "the future" (1999 - 2020). Unavoidably, some of his themes were dated--we no longer worry about nuclear holocaust and (I hope!) lynch mobs are very rare in the US these days. He didn't foresee the civil rights movement or the cooling of the arms race. Despite this lack of foresight, he showed that humans never change. We may think we're living in an enlightened age, but xenophobia still exists and we're still willing to destroy the history and of an old land in order to set up our new world. Yes, I did feel that the stories tended to be a bit on the dreary side, but for some reason it didn't bother me so much because it was made palatable by Bradbury's fantastic imagination.This is a fantastic classic that any science fiction fan should read.
    • 5/5
      Aside from hearing that The Martian Chronicles is a fabulous book, I had no expectations before diving in. I knew it was a book about life on Mars, but didn't know much else. I wasn't sure whether to expect Heinlen's Stranger in a Strange Land or Burroughs's Princess of Mars. What I found was very distinct from either of those.The book is structured in a series of short chapters, each of which felt like it could stand on its own as a distinct short story. Each chapter (perhaps with the exception of some of the shortest ones) had their own fun and interesting sets of character & environment developments, plot twists and story arcs. At the same time, they are all bound together by the passing of time from the first story to the last story and the consequences and effects of each story on the life and world of Mars.Unlike the other 'life on Mars' books I mentioned above, this book envisions a race of Martians living very much like Earthlings. In fact, for the first little bit I thought I was reading about Earth inhabitants living on Mars. Instead they were Martians but with some of the Earth habits and quirks you might stereotypically find in TV shows from the 50s and 60s. As the story progressed, the Martians definitely became their own distinct race with their own huge differences in behavior, community, rules and expectations. I really enjoyed the way Bradbury did this. He made the Martians immediately relatable by giving them Earth-like behaviors and traits but then quickly made them unique and intriguing by expounding on the differences of their world and their race.Within a few pages, we find that Earth is about to make contact with Mars. Again and again and again.The results are consistently humorous and intriguingly provocative. The interactions between Earthlings and Martians is a fun and interesting commentary on the way we all interact and deal with the unknown. I absolutely loved laughing at the ridiculous and over the top reactions and interactions while at the same time thinking about the truth of the behaviors and wondering why it is we do the things we do.It was slightly off-putting the way Bradbury seemed to ignore some of the scientific realities of Mars. I acknowledge that this is a work of science fiction and that it was written in the first half of the 20th century, but some of the elements struck me as a little odd for the first few chapters (such as the Earthlings being able to breath on Mars, the abundance of life both in terms of humanoid creatures and in other animals). The way some of the behaviors mixed with mid-20th century America, I sometimes felt disoriented by the lack of "true" Martian planetary realities. Fortunately this was very easy to ignore once I really dug into the story. And thanks to the fast pace of the storytelling combined with short chapters and a short overall book, I found myself completely immersed very quickly and thoroughly enjoying the tale without worrying about "reality."As a whole, I absolutely loved this book. The full stretch of the story was very engaging from the initial Earth-Mars contact to the final pages of the book. I also love the way the book is structured into a series of shorter almost stand-alone stories. I had quite a few favorites but I love that I can quickly and easily return to and reread or share these favorites without worrying too much about them being "out of context." I really loved the combination of silly humor, amazing sci-fi creativity and thoughtful social commentary. Definitely and A+ recommended read.*****5 out of 5 stars
    • 3/5
      Not very memorable characters but still very imaginative.
    • 4/5
      Wonderful prose and a thoughtful, if a little whimsical, metaphorical take on colonialisation. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      While I did like the movie, there is nothing like reading the book. Bradbury is a true artist with language and imagery, drawing the reader in from page one. The Chronicles will take you on a timeless journey into the future.
    • 4/5
      I love Bradbury, but somehow had managed not to read (all) of this until now. Some of it was really uncomfortable, and some is now very dated, but most of it was funny and interesting and thought-provoking.
    • 5/5
      Bradbury considered himself a man who “graduated from library.”

      The respect for the books which taught him was so deep the theme of the barbarity of burning them returns obsessively in both “Fahrehheit 451” and in “Usher II,” from “The Martian Chronicles,” a collection of short stories.

      The books he avidly read made him a man respectful of “the other,” of the supposed “different,” and a true democrat. It is no marvel that in “The Way In The Middle Of The Air,”Afro Ameerican slaves are finally given the ultimate chance of freedom, climbing on rockets and being off to the new planet.
      To Bradbury, Mars isn't just a resource to plunder and dominate; to him it's the frontier, and the best myths that go with it: a place full of marvel, a cathartic world where starting all over again is possible, along with a chance to restore the corrupted moral of a terrestrial world headed toward the atomic dissolution.

      To Bradbury, Martians are not aliens, but an epiphany of “the other” we ourselves are. The success of mankind in taking over Mars goes hand in hand with the respect and the knowledge men acquire and develop toward the Martians.

      Bradbury’s Martians are difficult to visualize. For each story, there’s something different about them, they have a brownish skin (Ylla, The Summer Night) or they have a transparent body filled with sparks, like a starry night (The Meeting At Night,) but it's remarkable how they have golden eyes, a symbol for ever-watching judgment. Often telepaths (Ylla, The Earth Men, The Off Season,) Martians dwell in our best memories and crushed hopes, until they become us (The Off Season, The Long Years.)

      Two years before his death, Bradbury said, “We’ve gotta become the Martians. I’m a Martian. I tell you to become Martians.”

      When Bradbury looked at the Martians, he saw... himself.
    • 4/5
      This is a great collection of short stories about life on Mars as a colonist. It still holds up quite well after all these years.
    • 5/5
      This was not a book that I would have ever picked up at the library and/or bookstore and gladly have read. However, the need to read a book of the reading list in highschool "coerced" me to choose this particular book.The book is more like an anthology of stories about the relationship between humans and Martians. It starts with astronauts from Earth visiting Mars and discovering that there are Martians, and more importantly, Martians realizing that there are such things as humans. The following stories deal with different events and stories as humans travel more and more to Mars and Martians start to die out. There are love stories and horror stories, wars and fights as well as stories that haunt.I will say that the book was alright. It was not this epic saga that grabbed a hold of you and whisked you away. However, I don't think until years later that I actually realized how important the book was. This is a "historical" account of how humans and Martians might react to one another. The relationships and misconceptions that the humans and Martians have with each other really show not only how horrid humans can be, but also how wonderful they can be. It is a view of society and how the character of humans really is. Also, it makes you wonder exactly which of the species is the "alien" and the most horrible. I especially loved the last story. I know this is a bit of a spoiler, but I liked how it mentions that humans became the next "Martians".I would recommend this for a more adult audience just because I think adults are more prone to understand and relate to the stories better. They would be able to dissect everything going on in the story. Plus, some of the stories are a bit "extreme" for children. I will say that the reader should look at the stories more critically and symbolic than just another sci-fi story to really get the whole image being conveyed.
    • 3/5
      Alright, so I liked this book and it raises a lot of interesting points but I am just not that into this sort of science fiction. It probably has a lot to do with me reading this book a a thirty year old rather than as a 15 or 16 year old, but that's the way it goes. Time just doesn't move slowly enough...
    • 4/5
      Rating: 4 of 5Status updates - 7/4/2012, page 37: The imagery, especially of the Martians' masks, is so vivid. I'm not sure where this story's going ... and I dig that.7/7/2012, page 205: Not what I expected; although, I'm not sure I really expected anything except maybe typical sci-fi stuff. One to think about before I write a "review."
    • 2/5
      I keep this as I only have two Bradburys and the other is Fahrenheit 451. This is as good as he gets, in my opinion, and the whole thing will be much better done by Robinson in his "Martian Trilogy", but pioneers need to leave behind some markers and here it is.
    • 5/5
      By far my favorite book I ever read for school. Still powerful.
    • 2/5
      2.5 stars ... and that's being generous.

      This collection of stories about Mars reminded me of Edgar Rice Burroughs stories. But where Burroughs entertained with adventures and action, Bradbury expounded on various themes, mostly anti-war and anti-establishment.

      The science in this fictional work played bit parts, merely a vehicle to get to a theatre of operations far removed from old Earth. A place where scenarios about preserving nature and archeological sites had paramount value. A place where minorities could start anew without the yoke of their oppressors dragging them through the dust. A place where the past could be preserved at the expense of Martian sanity.

      Rockets and atomic radio epitomized the Earth technological achievements. The Martians were vulnerable due to their telepathy and inward focus. Even less believable was the travel time to and from Earth -- unrealistically short considering the vast distances and plotting the different orbits of Earth and Mars to take advantage of launch windows.

      I skimmed many of these stories, I admit. I was either bored or frustrated. Some of them shine, like the tale about Spender and the one towards the end of the collection about the house running on autopilot. Otherwise, I'd sooner forget I read them.

    • 4/5
      What really is a collection of short pieces, tied together for a fifty-span of the colonization of Mars and the near-destruction of the human race. This is probably my favorite Bradbury book, although on this most recent reread, I had a little trouble reconciling some of the attitudes and ideas of what 2030 would have been (circa 1960s). It’s still a very interesting look at the effects of colonization and space exploration, and how humans would react to life on Mars. It’s a fun little book.
    • 4/5
      A masterful piece of science fiction. So bleak, yet very human at its core. Bradbury has a knack for bringing out the worst in the human race, but he always finds a way for there to be the smallest glimmer of hope for us as well.