“The Martian Chronicles” is what is known as a ‘fixup’ novel ie a novel comprised of a series of short stories that were originally written and published separately. (Apparently Bradbury was surprised when it was suggested to him that he had, in fact, already written a novel, he just had to put it together.) The story follows the exploration and colonisation of Mars by people from Earth, starting with some unsuccessful expeditions and eventually ending in the colonisation of the planet, and a dead (or mostly dead) Martian civilization that came before.

World building of Martian civilization and architecture is interesting. These stories were written before any Martian expeditions, and some suspension of disbelief is needed re such things as Martian ‘canals’ and a breathable atmosphere.

They had a house of crystal pillars on the planet Mars by the edge of an empty sea … eating the golden fruits that grew from the crystal walls, or cleaning the house with handfuls of magnetic dust which, taking all dirt with it, blew away on the hot wind.

Less interesting is that gender stereotypes and divisions are very pronounced here and that includes the Martians. Bradbury wrote these a long time ago, of course, and these kinds of ideas are to be expected. Whether or not the irony of Martian behaviour was intentional, it is darkly amusing that the first manned expedition to Mars is murdered by a Martian male who is jealous of his wife’s dream. (How very human of him.) Most of the descriptions of Martian behaviour and thought is no different from humans, which is a flaw. Even their assumptions about life on other planets is the same:

 “Do you ever wonder if – well, if there are people living on the third planet?”

“The third planet is incapable of supporting life,” stated the husband patiently. “Our scientists have said there’s far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.”

The only really interesting aspect of the Martian people is that they have telepathy. It appears to be a group telepathy, which is very relevant to the fate of the second and third Martian expeditions. Again, the second expedition being assumed to be insane Martians is dark comedy, and, just like humans, the Martians cannot conceive that they might be wrong about their assumptions.

But by the time of the fourth expedition, humans find that most of the Martians are dead. It is only at this point that the reader discovers the Martian population has been in decline for a long time, as many of the cities have obviously been deserted for hundreds or thousands of years. However some cities are full of dead Martians, and it is discovered they died from chickenpox. Bradbury has used the deaths on the American continent from smallpox when the Spanish first went there, an apt reminder that, in spite of our having wiped out diseases, they are dormant in our system and potentially could kill someone who had never been exposed, however mild (the common cold, for example.) Again, the expedition runs into trouble, this time from one of their own. He has translated and read Martian books (he says) and insists they were better. He doesn’t want humans to ruin their world. I find this an interesting incident as the interactions with the Martians have not shown them to be peace-loving or superior. If an alien came to our civilization after we are gone, and read some poetry or profound writing, would they imagine we are superior from that? How wrong they would be.

The stories depicting the colonization are making comment on how people go to new places but want them to be just the same. The towns that humans build are identical to what they have at home. They construct them the same, they eat the same food, they dress the same, they act the same. Nothing changes except the location. This is like people who emigrate to new places but construct miniature versions of their homes when they are there. European ‘ex-pats’ living in Africa or South America are depicted in fiction as constructing replicas of home and complaining about ‘native’ attitudes. Emigrants from one country to another live in the same way as they are used to, hence ‘Chinatown’, ‘Little Italy’ etc. People may be running from things they hate, but they end up taking those things with them. They struggle to change.

This is juxtaposed with the descriptions of the dead Martian cities, alien and completely intact, but empty. There is a sense of desolation and sorrow in the descriptions of the empty spaces:

… it was like entering a vast open library or a mausoleum in which the wind lives and over which the stars shone … He wondered where the people had gone, what they had been, and who their kings were, and how they had died.

There is a horror story in the middle of this book, called “Usher 2”, which in my opinion does not really fit with the rest of the narrative. However, it’s a great story in its own right. The main character has a house built on Mars that is a replica of the house of Usher. The protagonist, Stendahl, is a great fan of Edgar Allan Poe, and the reader learns that laws have been passed prohibiting books and imaginary constructs of any kind. He is visited by an investigator from ‘Moral Climates’, who are in charge of enforcing these rules, and who says that the house will be demolished. The story progresses as Stendahl gets the best of all the ‘Moral Climates’ people in the ultimate Poe homage. As I say, it doesn’t seem to fit within the narrative, but on its own it’s a fun story, especially if you’re a Poe fan.

When the Martian apparitions appear to a human character and give him a deed to Mars, I cannot but wonder if they were being ironic, that they knew Earth was about to destroy itself. Their gift to the man is basically a way of saying ‘enjoy our dead world, your world’s about to be dead too’. It’s a little hard to work out their motivation, but it seems backhanded to me.

The story “Night Meeting” is in my opinion a pivotal story in the book. In it a man travelling across the desert meets a Martian. The two have a conversation, in which they discover that the Martian is seeing a Mars fully populate by his own people and the human is, of course, not. Therefore they conclude they are talking across time somehow. What is interesting, though, is that the Martian states confidently that the human must be from the past, and when the human says, no, I’m from the future, your race is dead, the Martian does not believe him. Is this because the Martian does not want to believe his race is doomed to die out? Maybe, but on the other hand, who is to say that the world the Martian sees is not some future world, a new civilization down the track.

This has a tie-in to the final story, “The Million-Year Picnic”, where a man and his family go to live in one of the old Martian cities after Earth is destroyed. The man burns papers representing Earth and tells his children that Earth’s way of life was wrong as shown by its self-destruction. He takes the children to a canal and tells them to look in the water at their reflections and tells them that these are the Martians. So has time come full circle? Was the Martian encountered in the desert in the earlier story from the dead past, or a hopeful future? It is certainly an interesting possibility.

The Martians were there – in the canal – reflected in the water. Timothy and Michael and Robert and Mum and Dad.

The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water …

“The Martian Chronicles” is an entertaining series of stories about a journey, of Earth people to Mars, of Martians to their extinction, of old ways to new ways. I think it is best read in that light, about people holding on to old habits, and in the end having to release them for new ways of thinking and living. Unlike much science fiction of that period, it spends less time on hardware and things, and more time on people and ideas. I strongly recommend it to any lovers of science fiction.