The Martian Chronicles

author: Ray Bradbury
name: Wayne
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1950
rating: 5
read at: 2019/06/01
date added: 2019/06/01
shelves: sword-and-laser
review:
'The Martian Chronicles' by Ray Bradbury was the May pick for my online book club. I'd read the whole book ages ago and I wondered how it might hold up.

I first read The Martian Chronicles in 4th grade for a book report. I've read it a couple times since then, but there has been a big gap. Even in 4th grade there was a quaintness to the language that didn't seem very futuristic. Instead, it felt nostalgic, and I think that tone holds for the book. From the first settlers, and the dying/fading of the Martians, to a man who wants to open the first hot dog stand, to a man who lives with his robotic family, to the lonely house making breakfast for a family that has died in a nuclear war there is a call to the past.

The story setups can feel a bit dated but the real magic here is Bradbury's prose. There is real beauty in a summer evening sitting with long dead relatives sipping lemonade. Or a man obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe.

So read this for Bradbury's gift of storytelling. Then move on and keep reading Bradbury. That's what I've done, and I've never been sorry.


via Wayne's bookshelf: read http://bit.ly/2Kq1kLg