The martian chronicles
/ Ray Bradbury
- New York : Bantam Books , 1979
- 182 p. ; 18 cm
Contents: Rocket Summer Ylla The Summer Night The Earth Men The Taxpayer The Third Expedition -And the Moon Be Still As Bright The Settlers The Green Morning The Locusts Night Meeting The Shore Interim The Musicians Way in the Middle of the Air The Naming of Names Usher II The Old Ones The Martian The Luggage Store The Off Season The Watchers The Silent Towns The Long Years There Will Come Soft Rains The Million Year Picnic
The Martian Chronicles tells the story of humanity’s repeated attempts to colonize the red planet. The first men were few. Most succumbed to a disease they called the Great Loneliness when they saw their home planet dwindle to the size of a fist. They felt they had never been born. Those few that survived found no welcome on Mars. The shape-changing Martians thought they were native lunatics and duly locked them up. But more rockets arrived from Earth, and more, piercing the hallucinations projected by the Martians. People brought their old prejudices with them – and their desires and fantasies, tainted dreams. These were soon inhabited by the strange native beings, with their caged flowers and birds of flame.