the Martian Chronicles

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I was able to get a copy of "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury from Amazon, and re-reading it reminds me how much I loved it.

It also inspired one of my first stories here: https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/19389/perfect-opportu...

If you've never read it, I'd love it if you did, and of course comments are always appreciated!

Comments

Read it...

...when I was ten or eleven (I know I wasn't any older because I remember doing a book report on it) and found it awful.

Came back to it about 25 years later and still didn't like it. Some of the stories were good but they're presented as if they represent the same continuity and the same Martians, and there's no way I could see any consistency there.

Eric

Book and Movie

It seems to me that someone started to make a series about the book but that failed. I think they got one episode done. I liked it. The Martian Chronicles was one of the first Sci Fi books I read.

Gwen

Movie

There was a made for TV movie. They tried to mash it all together, and had, of all people, Rock Hudson as a (the) central character. Totally sucked all the life out of the stories. By that time I'd read the book at least a half-dozen times, and it was horrible! Key elements of the stories were simply gone! Like they decided they would be too difficult to shoot, so they just ripped them out. I was so-o-o disappointed!


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin

Yep

Andrea Lena's picture

Hudson was so miscast, and the whole production was more like The Martian Hastily Assembled Recaps. I had read the book years ago, and the production had a less-than made for TV movie which pretty much didn't remotely resemble the source. It's on streaming services and I tried re- watching it recently but couldn't get past the firrst half hour.

Ray Bradbury described it as "Just boring."

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

Have Spacesuit Will Travel

While I have read everything of Ray Bradbury that I could, my first Sci-Fi book was "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" by Robert Heinlein. That would have been 3rd Grade in 1968 :) That was my second "big" novel after "The Mouse and the Motorcycle".

Those guys

erin's picture

I liked that they seemed to have had the same tailor as Lex Luthor. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

The Martian Chronicles

I haven't read it in years, I will have to find it and Dandelion wine and while I'm at it see if I can find some of the Heinlein juvenile fiction I cut my reading teeth on. I also remember the Mouse and the motorcycle. It came back as soon as I saw the title, though I don't know when I read it. I do remember my first big book was an omnibus Winnie the Pooh collection, 3 books in one. I wanted to find the 100 acre wood and move there.

Time is the longest distance to your destination.

First big book

RobertaME's picture

My first big book was... um... Compton's Encyclopedia... at 4.

I am such a geek-girl! ::facepalm::

Heinlein's juveniles were very well-crafted, considering that they all predated the first orbit. The biggest gripes about them were that they were too... um... juvenile... which just goes to show that book reviewers don't understand the concept of "target audience". (same with early Harry Potter reviews)