Martian Chronicles: First Part

By Ray Bradbury

Mars Utopia.
Reality: Barren deserts, no water

     Hi, long time no see! Vacations are finally here, I while at it I took my time reading a bit of my favorite book. What I have to say of it: Genius! It always manages to draw me in his stories and tales of the conquest of Mars by humanity.

     My opinion: Best book ever! Well, that's my opinion and I really like science fiction so don't try to debate it. I'm serious.

     First Expedition

     Ylla is a normal, small, brownish-tanned, gold-eyed, she Martian living her life boringly normally along his husband Yll. Through a serene and desertic description of her routine and the fading affection between she and her husband, life in Mars is a peaceful and normal existence. 

     That is until Ylla starts having recurring dreams that enlighten her boring routine and which get Yll in a bad temper. Ylla dreams of a giant chunk of metal that comes from the sky, there she meets a strange being who is unusually tall with pale skin, black hair and blue eyes. He says he's the captain with his only company being his attendant and that his name is Nathaniel York. Since this recurring dreams, Ylla starts looking more happy and sings in an unknown language which gets Yll more suspicious. Although Ylla dismisses it as mere dreaming.

     Yll grows furious as he hears her fawning and talking to this man in her sleep about meeting this afternoon. She orders Ylla to stay at the house as they're going to have a visit while he goes hunting. She grows anxious as times passes by and the afternoon comes nearer. She gazes at the sky but convinces herself of staying. Soon she hears the sky thunder in a cloudless sky along the valley where the meeting was supposed to be. A little while later, her husband's gun echoes twice. She shudders at every shot.

     She continues waiting and cleaning unfazed but soon gets overwhelmed and screams in desperation. By the time her husband gets home, she has calmed a bit but mentions she can't remember the song she was singing although she tries a lot. He then comments deliberately clumsy: The visit was supposed to be tomorrow.

That's why one needs to go personally.

     Second Expedition

     Captain Williams and his crew of two men arrive happily on Mars and knock on the first door they could find. There a (middle-aged) Martian woman looks displeased by the interruption. Williams tries to explain how they came from Earth, the third planet in the solar system and how she is the first Martian ever they meet and how she should be just as excited. She nags about how they must want to meet his husband and that he is busy. The captain insists about their exhausting and long intergalactic voyage and how she should show (you know) more enthusiasm. 

     After talking to her husband, the woman sends them to another man who pays them as much attention as the woman and send them another man. Dragging their feet through the village, they finally meet Mr.Ttt who makes them sign some papers with an ominous clause such as euthanasia, but just for the sake of getting past all this procedures the captain signs them and asks if his crew should sign them too only to get laughed at. He gives the captain a key and tells him to enter the building just ahead and lock the door. Mr. Xxx would come the day after to see them. 

     By the time they arrive, they're tired and skeptical about the great welcome they expected. Inside they find a bunch of Martian in large tables all seated who ask who they are. Tiredly he answers he is captain Williams and his crew and that they came from Earth, the room explodes in applause and cheers and soon are surrounded by eager and curious Martians. 

     Just as they're happy by the welcome, a Martian comments how he is also from Earth along other three Martians. This confuses captain Williams and asks where he is from and he is incapable of finding the whereabouts of this city. He asks if this is in America, but the Martian doesn't know what's America. Then another woman exclaims how Earth is a jungle, while another a planet completely covered by water. Soon all the people in there start saying how they come from Jupiter, Venus and the like.

     He gets it, he knows now why they sent them here. He tells his crew they had send them to a mental asylum and they understand they cannot open the door anymore. One of his crew tells him that then is only a matter of convincing this Mr.Xxx that they're not crazy. But captain Williams points out that that will be hard as he points the different Martians capable of creating illusions along the room. Mr. Xxx will think all the appearance, the rocket, and even his crew are an illusion.

And that's why we never send people to Mars...

     The next day, Mr. Xxx arrives wearing a mask with three smiles and captain Williams takes him to see the spaceship and detail him that they're real spacemen from Earth. Mr. Xxx ventures inside the spaceship while captain Williams and his crew wait outside, when he exits he's astounded by the proficiency of the illusion and the balance he manages as not to be any imperfection. He calls him a genius maniac and how he will talk about him in his next conference. The captain insists that it is not an illusion and that his crew is real.

     Mr. Xxx proceeds to put "captain Williams out of his misery" with a gun. He waits for the illusions to disappear but only find the crew screaming and the spaceship that does not disappear. He is amazed again by his ability to make perdurable illusions and proceed to kill his crew and shoot the spaceship only to find it not disappearing yet. He then comes to the conclusion that he has been infected and that the only way to cure himself is with a shot in the head.

     And that's how the first two expeditions ended up. Martians are really similar yet not so nice neighbors. 

     One of the things you may find strange is that actually in this story people could go without the suits, that because they said there was enough oxygen although the air was really thin so they tried not to over exert themselves. After all, this was published in 1950. Also Martians as you may have guessed have telepathy and the like so they can understand human languages.

     Happy reading and vacations (if you have them)!