THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES

Ray Bradbury explains his goals for his collection of stories about settlers on Mars in his introduction: It's a "fable"—with echoes of Sherwood Anderson's WINESBURG, OHIO. Narrator Stephen Hoye brings that fable quality alive with touches of bemusement and irony as he delivers the stories of the humans who want to shape a strange planet and the planet's unique ways of resistance. Rather than making the tales of Mars seem fantastic, Hoye makes them more poignant or eerie by giving them an everyday quality, whether he's telling how Martians fend off the first human invaders or how humans deal with the folly of other humans. Bradbury's parables hold up well today. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2009]