The Martian Chronicles

Author: Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury's science fiction is unlike anything else being written at the time, and that is particularly true of The Martian Chronicles. A collection of linked stories that tell of the human conquest of Mars, it is full of mysterious elements that add a haunting quality to the book. There's the human expedition that arrives on Mars only to discover a mid-West town exactly like the one the astronauts grew up in; there are the dead people from their past who reappear to the colonists; there are strange ruins and religious experiences. Yet amid all of this there are threatening images as well: a cataclysmic war on Earth witnessed from space, lonely colonists searching for company amid deserted townships, isolated settlements where the dead seem to be still alive. This is a vision of Mars that you really won't find anywhere else, but once you read these stories the images will stay with you forever. This is a beautiful book that should not be missed.

Similar Recommendations

Bradbury's work mostly appeared in collections of linked stories, like The Illustrated Man in which the tattoos on a vagrant together reveal a terrifying vision of the future and of humanity's relationship with technology. But there was one novel that clearly deserves to be our Alternative Choice for a place in Top 100.