She does not have time, Mrs. Ttt replies to the Earth men of the second expedition, as a lot of cooking, cleaning and sewing
has to be done. And as for Mr. Ttt., he is too busy to entertain his Earth guests. After being asked to sign an agreement for euthanasia, the Earth men are given the keys to the House where they are welcomed with shouts and cheers. It is only later that the captain discovers that they have entered a lunatic asylum.
In a land where
hallucinations are catching and believable, in a world where hallucinations appear real, Mr. Xxx wears an expressionless mask upon his face- the mask that he always wears when he wants to hide his feelings. Asked to see the rocket ship, Mr. Xxx finds in it yet another instance of total insanity. There is only one thing to be done to dissole the imagery of captain, crew and rocket; so Mr. Xxx takes a gun and shoots the captain dead. When the hallucinations persist Mr. Xxx shoots the crew and, fearing contamination, himself. As for the rocket, nobody knows what it is and so it is sold to a junk dealer as scrap.
This is how the Martian Chronicles begin, and there is no denying the fact that Ray Bradbury is a master storyteller. For he evokes a sense of wonder that is so essential to the success of this genre. Though better known for his shorter
fiction, the author has achieved world-wide fame with two path breaking novels – Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles.
This book is about aliens and alienness, but we do not have to go to Mars to find them; for we are the aliens, and the aliens are us, Ray Bradbury seems to say. What is the nature of consciousness, What dreams lurk within our mind?
In an era when man is once again venturing to the stars, this novel adds a note of caution. That space travel is notjust about building shuttles and rockets, space travel is also about leaving the comforting confines of the earth and taking a leap into the unknown. The rockets may well withstand the pressures of spaceflight, but will man be able to cope? This fear is as true today as it was half a century earlier when this book was published. The real test of good writing (especially science fiction) – and what makes it truly great – is whether the work is as relevant today as when it was conceived. The author may have added a few years, but his work of imagination has not dated.