About this title: The brown-skinned, yellow-eyed people of Mars live a beautiful, peaceful life rich with art, music, and philosophy, until the humans from Earth land on their planet and attempt to colonize it in this classic collection of linked short stories. The planet Mars acts as a mirror to the worst (and, very occasionally, the best) of humanity--sometimes ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Collins
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780586043622ISBN:0586043624
Description: Good. This book is in GOOD overall condition. It shows signs of having been read and has general light wear to the cover, spine and pages. read more
Description: Acceptable. Ships from the UK. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Your purchase also supports literacy charities. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperVoyager
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780006479239ISBN:0006479235
Description: New. NEW-SHOP SOILED COPY-TRUSTED DEVON (UK) BASED SELLER-IN STOCK-SENT WITHIN 1 WORKING DAY-AVAILABLE BY EMAIL FOR QUERIES-NO QUIBBLE REFUND IF NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED- read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperVoyager
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780006479239ISBN:0006479235
Description: New. NEW-SHOP SOILED COPY-TRUSTED DEVON (UK) BASED SELLER-IN STOCK-SENT WITHIN 1 WORKING DAY-AVAILABLE BY EMAIL FOR QUERIES-NO QUIBBLE REFUND IF NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED- read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperVoyager
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780006479239ISBN:0006479235
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Panther, Great Britain
Date Published: 1979
ISBN-13:9780586043622ISBN:0586043624
Description: Fair+ 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall 0586043624 Paperback World famous fantasy classic of man's earliest experiences on an alien planet. Slight wear and a couple of creases to cover. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc. ) read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam
Date Published: 1972
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Nice soft cover, lightly read, light shelf wear to cover, light creases on spine, light aging, corner clipped on top of front cover, price written inside. 181 p. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam
Date Published: 1962
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Nice soft cover, lightly read, light shelf wear to cover, light creases on spine, surface tear on 1/3 of back cover, slant to book, stk #2393L7. 180 p. read more
Edition: Book Club (BCE/BOMC)
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam, New York
Date Published: 1973
Description: Good. No Jacket. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. 181 pp. Thirty-eighth printing. This is a reading copy only. The book is cocked, and the front cover is creased. The cover edges are scuffed. The binding is tight and the text is clean. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1972
Description: Fair. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Cover is worn with creasing at edges & one corner torn off at tip. Name written inside. Several pin holes in cover & first few pages. No creases or tears to pages. SYNOPSIS: Sometimes eerie, sometimes poetic fantasy about the colonization of Mars. The story of familiar people and familiar passions set against the incredible beauties of a new world. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books
Date Published: 1984
ISBN-13:9780553263633ISBN:0553263633
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. readers copy-wear tip/edge-readers crease-no creasing in spine. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: Young adult. read more
"Well, this book is a classic. I wish I could have read it in 1950 when all the imagination about the future was before us. But today, it is challenging to imagine because his guesses are so far from the known. Scientifically, we know Mars is uninhabitable and that computers - not radio - are a primary form of communication (!). Socially, we know that (legal) civil rights came only twenty years after the book's publishing, and that women and ethnic minorities are no longer in the background of our history.
With this, his stories were strange to read, some kind of limbo past/future that never happened.
Recommend reading this book differently, then. More as a social critique of America, a conversation about xenophobia and "otherness," and thoughtful about how we invade and recreate landscape. One can't help but sympathize with Spender in the end. If there were a real Mars and native, advanced Martian population today, would it play out much the same as it does in Bradbury's imagination?"
"Julia picked this book out for me at the library and I just let it sit on my end table for a week or two before I ever picked it up. I ended up really liking it. It's set in the future (well, actually it's set in the present, but it was the future when he wrote it--kind of like the Jetsons was supposed to be set in the year 2000) when Earth is able to send rockets to Mars and inhabit it. It has a lot of points to ponder and not just for the hypothetical situation of actually being able to live on another planet. Because of the structure of the book (little stories spread out over stretches of years and not always using the same characters) there is not much depth to the characters, but there was so much else going on in the book that I didn't mind. It was interesting to see how ridiculously far off Bradbury was on where we would be technologically by now (he came up with houses that run themselves and astonishingly lifelike robots, but didn't think of cell phones or the internet, for instance).
For my readers who sensor their books, I would guess this one averaged about 1 murder per 10-20 pages. They were not particularly graphic though, so they really weren't unsettling to me (except the part involving the character who was a big Edgar Allan Poe fan, but I can't say much more about that without having to put a spoiler tag on this)."
"It is remarkable to me how much of what I read as a young person has slipped out of my memory. I do remember carrying stacks of Bradbury books away from the library and devouring them. Maybe my "devouring" resembled when my dog eats steak: He smells the steak, you put it close to his mouth, and he has almost instantly swallowed it. No chewing. No savoring. Maybe that is how I was. (I wonder if I am better now.)
Really, I wanted to love this book -- since I spent such a lot of my middle school reading hours "enjoying" Bradbury's work. However, I found myself having a really hard time getting into the story line of the "American" colonization of Mars. Its not just that this is the Mars of canals -- I really liked "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis -- and his is a pre-space-age Mars. It was more the format of the tentatively linked short stories -- where every story seemed to have an all too obvious insight into the dark side of human nature.
Still, I can't turn my back on Bradbury entirely. If only for the sake of nostalgia."
"I found myself thinking after the first few chapters that this book was puerile, simplistic and childishly written. Bradbury seemed to make no effort to make his story either scientifically plausible or the characters anything but mundane and vapid. The more I read, however, the more interesting the story became, with thought-provoking ethical dilemmas being presented and increasingly subtle psychological issues being raised.
What a strange book this is; primarily, it seems a sort of social commentary, the fact that it is set on Mars being almost beside the point. American society and culture, at its very worst, duplicates itself in a new environment, and the dismal present perpetuates itself. Instead of the kinds of dystopic literature so often produced over the decades and even centuries, Bradbury's view seems to be that we already live in a dystopia, and his device of replicating our culture on a foreign planet simply draws attention to the dismalness with which we exist every day. It is an unexpected and effective conceit, causing the reader to reflect on our lives today, here and now.
And during the course of the story, which lasts for barely more than a quarter of a century, Earth is destroyed and Mars abandoned except for a few remaining colonizers who will try to recreate society and a civilization. It is ultimately a sad and dreary tale, more somber for being not entirely implausible, at least in principle. And yet, paradoxically, it is also an Edenic story, speaking to the desire for a return to innocence and simplicity. Movingly lyrical at times, this single science fiction work of 1950 was an important transitional book that bridged the gap from the pulp fiction that predated it to the more complex and mature science fiction that has been a uniquely American contribution to literature."
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