Fans of Ray Bradbury rejoice!
Paramount has just optioned the rights to Bradbury's CLASSIC and AWESOME novel "The Martian Chronicles"!
The joy and irony of this entire post is that we just personally re-read "The Martian Chronicles" for the first time since high school, literally 2 weeks ago. WE LOVED IT ALL OVER AGAIN.
The novel is actually a collection of short stories about the colonization of Mars. The entire novel is not a linear one-plot story, it's a multitude of stand alone tales that takes the reader on a bittersweet journey into the future from Earth to Mars. It's an EASY read, not overly complicated with some chapters encompassing only one page! Each story leaves you filled with anger, joy, sadness, bewilderment and in the end...awe...
We don't want to give too much away. Except, one chapter in particular is a real hoot. It's called "Usher II" and is a criticism of censorship (ala his seminal work "Fahrenheit 451") and is a marvelous tribute to Edgar Allen Poe in Poe's Usher House setting. You just have to read it for yourself. It's amazing. Bradbury is wildly talented and by all accounts without peer.
This novel and Bradbury the author were introduced to us way, way back in high school. Our literature class was helmed by a MARVELOUS, WONDERFUL, AWESOME Teacher, named Mr. Cusamano. His love of science fiction was infectious and subsequently gave us a life-long love of the genre too. Mr. Cusamano's crowning achievement was to introduce each year's classes to "The Martian Chronicles".
THANK YOU, Mr. C. You, out of all of our teachers, are the one we are most thankful for. YOU ROCKED.
Look for The Martian Chronicles movie to be produced by Predators/I, Robot producer John Davis. No word on when it would be out, but we imagine 2013 or so.
Martian Chronicles (From Bradbury's website)
"Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams and metaphor-of crystal pillars and fossil seas-where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn -first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars ... and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.
Ray Bradbury's THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES is a classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time's passage. In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster once again enthralls, delights and challenges us with his vision and his heart-starkly and stunningly exposing in brilliant spacelight our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong."
Excerpt:
The Martian Chronicles
Chapter 1: Rocket Summer
Rocket Summer
One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.
And then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town. A flooding sea of hot air; it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open. The heat pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children worked off their wool clothes. The housewives shed their bear disguises. The snow dissolved and showed last summer's ancient green lawns.
Rocket summer. The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses. Rocket summer. The warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows, erasing the art work. The skis and sleds suddenly useless. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground.
Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky.
The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land....
Paramount has just optioned the rights to Bradbury's CLASSIC and AWESOME novel "The Martian Chronicles"!
The joy and irony of this entire post is that we just personally re-read "The Martian Chronicles" for the first time since high school, literally 2 weeks ago. WE LOVED IT ALL OVER AGAIN.
The novel is actually a collection of short stories about the colonization of Mars. The entire novel is not a linear one-plot story, it's a multitude of stand alone tales that takes the reader on a bittersweet journey into the future from Earth to Mars. It's an EASY read, not overly complicated with some chapters encompassing only one page! Each story leaves you filled with anger, joy, sadness, bewilderment and in the end...awe...
We don't want to give too much away. Except, one chapter in particular is a real hoot. It's called "Usher II" and is a criticism of censorship (ala his seminal work "Fahrenheit 451") and is a marvelous tribute to Edgar Allen Poe in Poe's Usher House setting. You just have to read it for yourself. It's amazing. Bradbury is wildly talented and by all accounts without peer.
This novel and Bradbury the author were introduced to us way, way back in high school. Our literature class was helmed by a MARVELOUS, WONDERFUL, AWESOME Teacher, named Mr. Cusamano. His love of science fiction was infectious and subsequently gave us a life-long love of the genre too. Mr. Cusamano's crowning achievement was to introduce each year's classes to "The Martian Chronicles".
THANK YOU, Mr. C. You, out of all of our teachers, are the one we are most thankful for. YOU ROCKED.
Look for The Martian Chronicles movie to be produced by Predators/I, Robot producer John Davis. No word on when it would be out, but we imagine 2013 or so.
Martian Chronicles (From Bradbury's website)
"Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams and metaphor-of crystal pillars and fossil seas-where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn -first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars ... and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.
Ray Bradbury's THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES is a classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time's passage. In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster once again enthralls, delights and challenges us with his vision and his heart-starkly and stunningly exposing in brilliant spacelight our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong."
Excerpt:
The Martian Chronicles
Chapter 1: Rocket Summer
Rocket Summer
One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.
And then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town. A flooding sea of hot air; it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open. The heat pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children worked off their wool clothes. The housewives shed their bear disguises. The snow dissolved and showed last summer's ancient green lawns.
Rocket summer. The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses. Rocket summer. The warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows, erasing the art work. The skis and sleds suddenly useless. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground.
Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky.
The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land....
Awesome! I was just thinking to myself over the weekend that I'd like to read The Martian Chronicles as I haven't yet!
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