The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury

Les Chroniques martiennes - Ray Bradbury - présent à votre attention!

The Martian Chronicles is Ray Bradbury's sci-fi novel, which brought wide fame to the author.

In fact, the content of the book The Martian Chronicles is a cross between a collection of short stories and episodic short stories, including stories previously published in literary journals in the second half of the 40s. The Martian Chronicles captures the main issues of concern to American society in the early 1950s: the threat of nuclear war, longing for a simpler life, reaction against racism and censorship. The science fiction genre Bradbury liked precisely the opportunity to show the current state of affairs in the world, using the scenery of a fictional future, and thus protect people from repeating and exacerbating the mistakes of the past. guests, ”and also tells about the beginning and consequences of the Third World War on Earth. The Martian Chronicles was first published in 1950 in the USA.

In 1951, the book was published in the UK under the title “The Silver Locust” (The Silver Locusts), with slightly different content from the original. In some editions, the head of “Asher II” (Usher II) was missing, the place of which was occupied by the short story “Fireballs” (The Fire Balloons).

In the Spanish-language version of the work was preceded by a preface, written by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.

In 1997, when reissuing, the dating of events was changed - the development of the action was moved 31 years ahead. Thus, the new time frame in the work - from 2030 to 2057. Also in the reprint was included the short story “The Fireballs” (The Fire Balloons), not previously part of the novel; instead of the chapter “... High into the heavens” (Less in the air in 1997) than in 1951, the short story “The Wilderness” was placed. In all likelihood, the decision to change the dating of events was due to the fact that the initial time frame (from 1999 to 2026) turned out to be too close to reality, while this science-fiction work, according to the author’s intention, tells about the future.