When times here on Earth are particularly stressful or weird, I often find some solace in the escapism of a good science fiction read. It’s an opportunity to escape reality by suspending some disbelief and letting the author paint an often futuristic world that at least someone thinks will turn out great.

Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles” cycled through my reading list just before the world went to hell — or at least before many of us truly realized the extent of what was happening.

With Earth in this story fully wrecked by nuclear war, waves of people are sent up in rockets to check out the situation and begin the process of trying to live on Mars. What I truly enjoyed about this book was the way Bradbury told it basically as a series of short stories following the escapades of the various crews as they landed, what they thought happened to the earlier ones, and the varied fates they met.

The exact copy I have is one I raided from my dad’s library so it has things like his name scribbled in the front cover from 1970 and notes I can’t decipher in the back.

Bradbury first published the book in 1950, so he had plenty of history to look back upon and lampoon as he crafted the stories of his great conquering adventurers and what they thought was some higher, better, more advanced way of life they were bringing to a place where Martian society already existed and flourished.

And then of course there was the inevitable outcome for such well-intentioned people who just screwed up a whole planet but absolutely in no way could possibly do that again.

“We Won’t ruin Mars,” said the captain. “It’s too big and too good.”
“You think not? We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things. The only reason we didn’t set up hot-dog stands in the midst of the Egyptian temple of Karnak is because it was out of the way and served no large commercial purpose.”

Oops.