The Martian Chronicles is a 1950 science fiction book by Ray Bradbury that chronicles the colonization of Mars by refugee humans from a troubled Earth, and the conflict between aboriginal Martians and the new colonists. The book lies somewhere between a short story collection and an episodic novel, containing Bradbury stories originally published in the late 1940s in science fiction magazines. For publication, the stories were loosely woven together with a series of short, interstitial vignettes. Bradbury has credited Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath as influences on the structure of the book. He has called it a "half-cousin to a novel" and "a book of stories pretending to be a novel."

The book was published in the United Kingdom in 1951 under the title The Silver Locusts, with slightly different contents: the story "Usher II" was removed, and the story "The Fire Balloons" was added.

The Martian Chronicles was made into a TV miniseries in 1979, which Bradbury found "just boring."

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First published in Planet Stories, Spring 1947.

The stories of the book are arranged in chronological order, starting in January 1999, with the departure of the first expedition. Rocket Summer is a short vignette which describes Ohio's winter turning briefly into summer due to the extreme heat of the rocket's take-off.

First published as I'll Not Look for Wine in Maclean's, January 1, 1950.

The following chapter, Ylla, moves the story to Mars. Ylla, a Martian woman trapped in an unromantic marriage, dreams of the coming astronauts through her powers of telepathy. Her husband, though he pretends to deny the reality of the dreams, becomes very jealous. He kills the two-man expedition as soon as they arrive.

First published as The Spring Night in Arkham Sampler, Winter 1948.

This short vignette tells of Martians throughout Mars who, like Ylla, begin subconsciously picking up stray thoughts from the humans aboard the Second Expedition's ship, which is approaching their planet.

First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1948.

Tells of the "Second Expedition" to Mars. The astronauts arrive to find the Martians to be strangely unresponsive to their presence. The one exception to this is a group of Martians in a building who greet them with a parade. Several of the Martians in the building claim to be from Earth or from other planets of the solar system, and the captain slowly realizes that the Martian gift for telepathy allows others to view the hallucinations of the insane, and that they have been placed in an asylum. The Martians they have encountered all believed that their unusual appearance was a projected hallucination. Because the "hallucinations" are so detailed and the captain refuses to admit he is not from Earth, Mr. Xxx, his psychiatrist, declares him incurable and kills him. When the "imaginary" crew does not disappear as well, Mr. Xxx shoots and kills them. Finally, as the "imaginary" rocket remains in existence, Mr. Xxx concludes that he too must be crazy and shoots himself. The ship of the Second Expedition is sold as scrap at a junkyard.

First appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

A man insists that he has a right to be let onto the next rocket to Mars, because he is a taxpayer. He insists on being let on the ship so strongly because the Earth will be having a great war soon, and no one wants to be around when it happens. He is not allowed on the ship.

First published as Mars is Heaven in Planet Stories, Fall 1948.

The arrival and demise of the third group of Americans to land on Mars. This time the Martians are prepared for the Earthlings. When the crew arrives, they see a typical town of the 1920s filled with the long lost loved ones of the astronauts. The next morning, sixteen coffins exit sixteen houses and are buried. These opening chapters are the strangest of the whole collection and conclude any detailed discussion of Martians and their abilities.

(The original short story was set in the 1960s and dealt with characters nostalgic for their childhoods in the midwestern United States in the 1920s. In the Chronicles version, which takes place forty years later but which still relies upon the 1920s nostalgia, the story contains a brief paragraph about medical treatments that slow the aging process, so that the characters can be traveling to Mars in the 2000s but still remember the 1920s.)

First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1948.

The next chapter opens with the men of the Fourth Expedition gathering firewood against the cold Martian evening. The scientists have found that all of the Martians have died of chicken pox (brought by the first expeditions). The men, except for the archeologist Spender and Captain Wilder, become more boisterous. Spender loses his temper when one of his crewmates starts dropping empty wine bottles into a clear blue canal. He knocks him into the canal. When questioned by his captain, Spender replies "We'll rip it up, rip the skin off, and change it to fit ourselves...We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things," referring to Mars. He leaves the rest of the landing party to explore Martian ruins.

• Note that, in some editions of the novel, the two stories relating to Jeff Spender have been combined as one.*

Spender returns to the rest of the expedition. He carries a Martian gun and shoots several of his crewmates, saying he is the last Martian. Captain Wilder approaches under a white flag and has a short discussion with Spender during which the archaeologist explains that if he manages to kill off the expedition it may delay human colonization of the planet for a few more years, possibly long enough that the expected nuclear war on Earth will protect Mars from human colonization completely. Although he somewhat agrees with Spender's attitude toward colonization, Captain Wilder opposes his methods. He shoots Spender in the chest before he has the opportunity to kill anyone else. The captain later knocks out the teeth of Parkhill, another expedition member, when he disrespectfully damages some Martian ruins. Many of the characters of the Fourth Expedition — Parkhill, Captain Wilder, and Hathaway — re-appear in later stories. This is also the first story that displays a central theme of The Martian Chronicles. It acts as a commentary on the Western frontier of the United States and its colonization, using the colonization of Mars as the analogy. Like Spender, Bradbury's message is that some types of colonization are right and others are wrong. Trying to recreate Earth is viewed as wrong, but an approach that respects the fallen civilization that you are replacing is right.

• In the previously mentioned version, this short story describes the first settlers coming to Mars, the Lonely Ones, the ones that came to start over on the planet. It first appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

First appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

The next several chapters describe the transformation of Mars into another Earth. Small towns similar to those on Earth begin to grow. In The Green Morning, one man, Benjamin Driscoll, makes it his mission to plant thousands of trees on the red plains so oxygen levels will increase. Due to some property of the Martian soil, the trees he plants grow into a mighty forest in a single night.

First appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

This vignette concerns the swift colonization of Mars. The title refers to the rockets and settlers which quickly spread across all of Mars.

First appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

This story begins with a conversation between an old man and a young traveler, Tomas Gomez. The older man explains that he came to Mars because he appreciates the new and novel. Even everyday things have become amazing to him once again. He has returned full circle to his childhood. Later, Tomas encounters a Martian. Each can see the Mars he is accustomed to. The young man sees ruins where the Martian sees a thriving city. Neither knows if he precedes the other in time, but Bradbury makes the point that any one civilization is ultimately fleeting.

First appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

This short vignette begins by comparing Mars to a shore, and humans to waves. It goes on to tell briefly of the first settlers, and their status as loners and outcasts on Earth.

First appeared as In This Sign in Imagination, April 1950.

A missionary expedition of Episcopal priests from the United States anticipates sins unknown to them on Mars. Instead, they meet ethereal creatures who glow as blue flames in crystal spheres, who have left behind the material world, and thus have escaped sin.

This story appeared only in The Silver Locusts, the British edition of The Martian Chronicles. It otherwise appeared in The Illustrated Man.

First appeared in Weird Tales, July 1947.

This story describes the building of a Martian town by colonists and how much it was made to resemble an average Midwestern American town. The town was said to have appeared to have been swept up by a tornado on Earth, and brought to Mars.

First appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

The Earth colonists deliberately attempt to exterminate the Martian cities. Interestingly, the term "Firemen" is used to describe those who set fires, as opposed to those who extinguish them, as in Fahrenheit 451. This alludes to later stories, with "Moral Climates" and the burning of literature — similar, once more, to Fahrenheit 451.

First appeared in Other Worlds, July 1950.

African Americans plan to emigrate to Mars, and are delighted to imagine that the days of lynching are over for them. Samuel Teece is an old, crabby white man who tries to stop all of the black men from leaving, from making up chores to bringing back old, unneeded debts. He fails in each attempt. It depicts the way some in the American South thought about blacks.

First appeared in The Martian Chronicles. Not to be confused with the short story The Naming of Names, first published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1949, later published as Dark They Were, and Golden-eyed.

This story is about later waves of immigrants to Mars, and how the geography of Mars is now largely named after the people from the first four expeditions (e.g. Spender Hill, Driscoll Forest) rather than after physical descriptions of the terrain. As well as colonialism, that tends to cover over the past and converts everything to their own dreams.

First published as Carnival of Madness in Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1950.

Usher II tells of Bradbury’s and other writers’ fear of censorship. A literary expert named William Stendahl retreats to Mars and builds his image of the perfect manse, complete with mechanical bats and creaky door soundtracks. When the Moral Climate Monitors come to visit, he arranges to kill each in a manner reminiscent of a different horror masterpiece, including Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado. When his persecutors are dead, the house sinks into the lake as in Poe’s short story, The Fall of the House of Usher. Here, Bradbury’s message is simple: what goes around comes around, and ironic revenge is sweeter still.

First appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

This story indicates how hospitable and welcoming Mars is now, in which the elderly migrate too.

First published in Super Science Stories, November 1949.

LaFarge and his wife Anna have forged a new life for themselves, but they still miss their dead son Tom. They encounter an alien with an apparent empathic shapeshifting ability: it appears as their dead son to them, but appears to another family as a lost daughter. "I'm not anyone, I'm just myself; wherever I am, I am something..." LaFarge and the Martian travel to town together, where the Martian's ability makes it have to shapeshift to all the townspeople's most-lost individuals at once, a feat too great for the Martian, who spasms and dies.

First appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

The story of Mars and its inhabitants is continued in a discussion between a priest and a luggage storeowner. Nuclear war has begun on Earth, and the priest predicts that most of the colonists will return to help. He proves right and the store is sold out overnight.

First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1948.

In another place, we again meet Parkhill. He has opened a hotdog stand, when a lone martian walks in. He panics and kills it. Suddenly, numerous Martians appear in sand ships. Parkhill takes his wife and flees. The Martians catch up and give Parkhill a message: he now owns half of Mars. Unfortunately, the fleet of rockets filled with "hungry customers" won't be coming to patronize his restaurant, as the nuclear war has begun on Earth.

First appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

The colonists witness a nuclear war on Earth, from Mars. They immediately return out of concern for their friends and families.

First published in Charm, March 1949.

Almost everybody has left Mars to go to Earth, but Walter Gripp remains behind in the mountains. He is lonely, and tries to find other people. He finally contacts one other person on the phone, a woman named Genevieve Selsor, and he rushes to meet her. But when he meets her, he finds her unattractive and insipid, and decides he'd rather spend his life alone.

First published as Dwellers in Silence in Maclean's, September 15, 1948.

Hathaway is living alone on Mars. His family has died, and he has replaced them with robots. Captain Wilder finally returns to Mars to offer him a rescue back to Earth, but Hathaway dies before he can depart. The crew plans to leave, but decides not to leave the robot family "alive." One of the crew returns to the house with a pistol, but shortly after returns, sweating, having been unable to bring himself to kill the robotic family even knowing that they were not truly human.

First published in Collier's, May 6, 1950.

The story concerns a household in California after the nuclear war has wiped out the population. Though the family is dead, the robots that take care of the family still function. The reader can still learn a great deal about what the family was like by how the robots continue on in their functions. One of the most disturbing images in this story was when Ray Bradbury talks of the families silhouettes which are permanently burned onto the side of the house when they were vaporized by the nuclear explosion, most disturbing is of two children playing catch. The title of the story comes from a poem that the house reads once a day, also titled "There Will Come Soft Rains." The theme of the poem is that nature will survive after humanity is gone, but the theme of the story is that through radiation humanity has completely sterilized life on Earth, perhaps forever.

This is one of the most famous short stories in science fiction.

First published in Planet Stories, Summer 1946.

A family takes a "fishing trip" escaping from war-torn Earth to Mars. Says Timmy’s father, "I was looking for Earthian logic, common sense, good government, peace, and responsibility... It's not there anymore." Later, he gifts his boys with the world. And he introduces them to Martians -- their own reflections in a canal.

A new edition of The Martian Chronicles published by Hill House (2005) appends several additional Bradbury stories on Martian themes. They are:

• The One Who Waits (Arkham Sampler, Summer 1949)
• The Lonely Ones (Startling Stories, July 1949)
• The Exiles (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Winter/Spring 1950)
• The Strawberry Window (Star Science Fiction Stories #3, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1954)
• The Blue Bottle (Planet Stories, Fall 1950)
• The Messiah (Welcome Aboard, Spring 1971)
• The Visitor (Startling Stories, November 1948)
• The Love Affair (The Love Affair, Lord John Press 1982, written c. 1948)
• The Lost City of Mars (Playboy, January 1967)
• Holiday (Playboy, December 1963)
• The Other Foot (New Story, March 1951)
• Night Call, Collect (Super Science Stories, April 1949)
• Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed (Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1949)

• Space colonization in popular culture

• Study guide from WSU
• Free online study guide at PinkMonkey
• Study guide from SparkNotes
• ISBN 0553278223
• IMDb entry for miniseries