The Martian Chronicles

By: Ray Bradbury / Narrated By: Mark Boyett

Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins

I bow low, touching my forehead to the earth; all in homage to the great Ray Bradbury!

Full disclosure: I’m a boob… Wait! Whadda ya mean that’s no surprise?!

>Ahem< What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t discover Ray Bradbury as an author until waaay later in my life. My initial exposure was through the 1979 miniseries of The Martian Chronicles, and I totally loved each of the stories (Tho’ Wikipedia has a quote whereby Bradbury said it was just boring). But not even that was enough to get me going on him or his other works.

It wasn’t until I heard the man could write the grotesque well that I dived in and started reading The October Country that I discovered a) The man was a twisted puppy, and b) The man was a very, very good writer!!

You offer Ray Bradbury on audiobook, and I’m THERE!

I got two versions of The Martian Chronicles, each for $1.99 by buying the kindle version first for, like, nothing! That’s why I was able to listen to Bradbury’s Foreword on the version by Stephen Hoye (Very interesting), but that’s why I then cringed (Cuz Hoye is cringe-worthy) and dashed to the Mark Boyett version.

Boyett, while not perfect, delivers sooo much more emotion and passion than Hoye does, and it’s a real treat to listen to him do these stories. After all, the stories deal with Martians fighting for their way of life, doing what it takes as expedition after expedition from Earth comes to invade their peace.

And after disease causing germs cause a plague that wipes them out, voyagers from Earth rush in to make Mars a New Earth, not only not embracing the beauty of what came before, but there are men who desecrate the environment. The Martian Chronicles is nothing if not a portrait of The Ugly American where we stomp on, we annihilate, we usurp all that we see, making ourselves lords of the land.

There are stories of a few good eggs; there are stories of tragedy, stories of mystical happenings. Mostly they’re stories of human nature, whether it’s the early stories of a Martian man who suddenly feels violent jealousy because his long-ignored wife has been having dreams of Earth men, or it’s a story of a settler, left alone after there’s an exodus back to Earth—a settler who will do anything to be with the family he loves.

There’s humor in the stories, but mostly I was taken with how much social commentary there was. And what really wowed me was how current the themes are—they still very much resonate with the listener even though they were written so long ago.

You want superb writing and many jaunts into your imagination? Let Ray Bradbury be your guide. Wonderful prose, stories that aged well, jolly decent narration: This book has it all for you.

Just, for the love of GOD: Stay away from S. Hoye’s narration. I listened to part of his version, and I danged near DIED!