The Time Machine – H.G. Wells (1895)

After reading The Invisible Man (1897), I was curious about other H.G. Wells’ work so picked up this title up. This was his debut novel and was shortish and fairly famous and is early sci-fi – all good things in my book. I enjoyed it more than The Invisible Man, mainly because the protagonist was much more likable. (I know that I don’t have to like the protag to enjoy a story, but it doesn’t hurt if you do like him or her.)

So this novella features the lead character called only The Time Traveller. (He’s given other names in later adaptations but in the original version, he is just called this.) He is an inventor and scientist of a type, and is describing his adventures at a small dinner party with a handful of friends. It’s an effective framing device for the story and allows Wells to show how the other guests react to what The Time Traveller describes in his adventures.

As with The Invisible Man, there is quite a bit of solid science talk here to explain how time travel could theoretically work, and in the early stages of testing, The Time Traveller only travels a few hours of time. As he gets braver, he continues to travel forward hundreds of years where he meets two new species of beings, the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi are small surface-dwelling vegetarian peoples who are peaceful but not very active and have little initiative. (Was Wells criticizing the veggie diet here? Was he a big meat-eater in his real life?)

On the other hand, the Morlocks are larger warrior-type people who live entirely underground their whole lives, and it’s clear to the reader who Wells admires more. This is also a pretty political novel, just as The Invisible Man was in some ways, since it’s very referential to the social-class-based system: the weakened posh Eloi up above in the sunlight living a charmed life whilst the Morlocks are stuck working in mines under the surface of the earth, producing all the power for the Eloi. It’s not subtle at all, but that’s not to say that it’s not a powerful set-up at the same time.

The narrative continues with The Time Traveller moving even further forward in time, over centuries, to see how the Earth continues to develop and as the years drop off, he sees Earth collapse under the fading sun as society and its peoples fade away as the temperatures drop and freeze. Like I mentioned, it’s not subtle or hopeful, but if you read it in the political subtext, then it’s pretty interesting.

Wells himself was a futurist with a progressive view and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. He was trained in biology at the Royal College of Science (you can see his science training in the writing), and he was an outspoken Socialist (also obvious in his writing that I’ve read). He married but messed around, including having a three-year affair with Elizabeth von Arnim and one with author Rebecca West.

I’m enjoying these reading adventures with Wells and he was pretty prolific so there is more from which to choose. Which one is next?…

In brief…

Although I have been somewhat absent from the blog (sorry), I have been busy doing other things. I’ve also been reading (albeit somewhat slower than normal) and I thought I would just do some short reviews about those titles:

Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood (2003)

An excellent read from Atwood, part one in the (sci-fi-ish) MaddAdam trilogy, and now I’m psyched to track down the next installment. I went to the library but someone else has the same idea and had checked out the one copy so, frustratingly, I have to wait. Waah. But at least I have about five quillion other titles from which to choose my next read whilst I cool my heels. 

Then I whipped through a quick and fluffy read of Katherine Rooney’s Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk. It was ok but rather a forgettable read. My friend loved it, though, so perhaps take my experience with a grain of salt. It might have been me…. 😉

Now, I’m immersed in some excellent NF: America’s Best Travel Writing 2019 (Alexandra Fuller, ed.) and so since we can’t travel right now, this is the next best thing (since we can travel via the written word). A longer review to follow…

And then – guess what? It snowed seven inches last night and so we’ve been snuggled up inside when we haven’t been outside goofing around with Nova Dog (who ADORES snow). 

Plus – a jigsaw puzzle. Wow. I just love these things. 🙂

Top Book Titles for 2019

Like so many others in the book-blog sphere, I enjoy taking a look back at what I’ve read over the past twelve months of 2019 – some have been complete winners and some not, but overall, I’ve been happy with what I’ve read.

Big trends in choosing my titles have been mostly in choosing POC titles and topics and preferably the combo of both titles/authors of color. This has been eye-opening for me, and is a trend that will definitely continue over the future. I’d like to get to the point where I don’t really have to search out names and topics… Until then, I’m going to carry on this special effort to continue that focus until it’s a habit. It’s up to me to educate me, after all.

To the Top Ten Reads of 2019 (in no particular order):

The Rotter’s Club – Jonathan Coe (2001) (F). A novel written around the time that I grew up in England so brought back many happy memories. Plus written in a very creative structure and approach. I have the sequel on the TBR. <rubs hands with anticipatory delight>

Barracoon: The Story of the “Last Cargo” – Zora Neale Hurston (1931) (NF/African-American/History). Just an amazing piece of historical lit… Should be required reading.

There, There – Tommy Orange (2018) (F). An excellent fictional read written about Native Americans in the modern world by a young Native American writer.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI – David Grann (2017) (NF/history/Native American). True tale of a series of early 20th century murders in a First Peoples tribe which happened to own large swathes of land with oil reserves on it…

Greengates – R.C. Sheriff (1936) (F). A lovely straightforward mid-century British novel.

Golden Handcuffs: The Secret History of Trump’s Women – Nina Burleigh (2018) (NF/biography). Very useful in trying to understand (if I can) our perplexing president. If this is how he treats his spouse(s)… <smh>.

The Emperor of All Maladies – Siddartha Muhkerjee (2010) (NF/Science/Medical). Fascinating history and biography of cancer.

Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? – Beverly Daniel Tatum (2003) (NF/sociology/African-American/race). (No blog post [only due to job busy] but you might check out this list of related AfAm NF titles I’ve read…) A timely NF that looks at race and how it plays out in the country today. Valuable on so many levels. We also saw the author speak – wonderful as well.

The October Country – Ray Bradbury (1955) (F/short stories/spec pic). A collection of different spec fiction stories written by a master writer.

The Jaguar’s Children – John Vaillant (2015) (F). I know the author for his amazing NF book about a Siberian tiger, but here, he’s writing fiction about the plight of Mexican immigrants… (Interesting to compare this work with the recent palavar about American Dirt/Jeanine Cummins [2020]. See here for an article from Slate about it all.)

The Parable of the Sower – Octavia E. Butler (1993) (F/spec fiction/sci fi). Really good sci fi novel by one of the first (and best) sci fi authors of color (also a woman). Try it even if you’re “not into sci fi”. It’s a good read, however you categorize it.

Other annual reading-related statistics:

• Total pages read: 25,253 (average: 275 pp).
• Total number of titles read: 94. (Compare with 2018: 77.)
• DNFs for the year: 4.
• Male: 42.
• Female: 41.
• Mixed gender (e.g. an anthology etc.): 11.
• POC: 30 (for a total of 32%). Close to one in every three titles. Go me. 🙂
• NF: 54 (57%)
• F: 40.
• TBR Titles: 60 off the TBR (of 64% of the total read).
• Oldest title: 1836 (Charles Dickens/The Pickwick Papers).
• Longest page number: The Thornbirds/McCullough: 692 pages.
• Shortest page number: 32 pages (The Snowman/Raymond Briggs).

Happy new year (and happy reading ahead) to all!

October 2019 Reading Review

That was a pretty fun month, reading- and life-wise. Outstanding was the play that we saw at the university (Black Girl, Interrupted) and watching the BBC-TV series, “The Durrells in Corfu.” 

• Total books read: 12 (including 1 DNF)
• Total pages read:   2664 pp. (av. 242 pp.)
• NF: 4 (36% of total)      
• F: 7 (64% of total)
• TBR: 6 (50% of total read). 
• Total % TBR for year to date: 55%.
• Library: 5 (including 1 ILL).  
• POC author/topic(s): 7 (58% of total).
• Male to Female: 5 males + 6 females + 0 of mixed genders.
• DNFs: 1 (but probably going to pick it up again after a space of time)
• Oldest title: 1883 (A Book on Medical Discourses…) . 
• Longest title (re: page count): 344 pp. 
• Shortest title (re: page count) (excluding DNFs): 132 pp.

Here’s what I read in October:

• Mama Day – Gloria Naylor (1988) F
• A Book on Medical Discourses in Two Parts – Rebecca Lee Crumpler (1883) NF
• The Jaguar’s Children – John Vaillant (2015) F
• The October Country – Ray Bradbury (1955) F/Short Stories
• Aya: The Secrets Come Out – Marguerite Abouet and Clement Ouberie (2009)
• Dracula – Bram Stoker (1889) F 
• The Well-Dressed Lady’s Pocket Guide – Karen Homer (2013) NF 
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie (2007) F 
• And the Band Played On – Randy Schiltz (1987) NF – DNF, but on hold for a later date.
• Hostages to Fortune – Elizabeth Cambridge (1933) F
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? – Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D. (2003) NF

Plus (because I am a complete nerd) this jigsaw puzzle:

November plans? Not really. I am very open to whatever comes my way and I’m happy to keep jogging along in this particular lane. I might need to rein in the book purchases though. (With the caveat that there is a December book and jigsaw puzzle sale on the cards…) :-}

Oh, and join in a bit for NonFiction November...!

The October Country – Ray Bradbury (1955)

October Country…that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. 

Seeing as it’s October and thus the month of Halloween, I thought I’d dig around and see what kind of slightly-horror book I could read to join in the fun. I am a complete wimp when it comes to scary novels but I can do Bradbury since he rather feels like spec fiction more than true horror. (I really enjoy spec fiction when the world in the novel is almost the same as the one we’re in, but just with a little twist and a piece of lemon.) 🙂

Obviously, when you read Bradbury’s work, especially this one written between 1945 and 1955, it’s going to be a really white-people experience with little in the name of diversity, but that’s ok. You know that going in, for the most part, so it’s not too jarring. That was the country back then and writers tend to reflect the times in which they live and write. 

Bradbury is a very good writer. He knows how to utilize language and structural techniques to make each story excellent examples of technically superb fiction-writing, and I usually typically look forward to reading one of his titles. And this was that similar experience for me. Flawless writing, each short story an excellent example of the short-story format. That’s not to say that I really liked every story in the collection: as in any selection of a writer’s work, there are going to be personal hits-and-misses, but this was overall one of those perfect-reads-at-a-perfect-time. I love it when that happens.

Each story is a little bit spooky in a world that’s just a little bit off-kilter, but nothing too scary. There were definitely one or two that got my heart racing a little bit, but nothing too terrorizing. Like I mentioned, it’s mostly speculative fiction way more than horror, so if you’re ok with that, you’ll get on with this collection. 

Stories ranged widely in subject matter, from domestic situations gone awry to poignant encounters with funhouse mirrors and strange poker chips, and as Bradbury’s second short story collection, it was a true reflection of his writing style.

I enjoyed it and I’m glad that I read it during October when the weather (at least here in Texas) is finally starting to behave like it’s autumn in terms of outside temperatures and the leaves turning colors. Luckily, Bradbury has a big oeuvre from which to choose my next read… I’m thinking “Something Wicked This Way Comes…” at some point. 

The Illustrated Man – Ray Bradbury (2012)

I am rather a FanGirl of Ray Bradbury’s work (see Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer, The Martian Chronicles…) and knew that this would probably a really good solid read. It’s short stories, mostly speculative fiction (my favorite type of scifi) and all written to the close-to-perfect Bradbury standards.

Interestingly, unlike other collections of short stories that I’ve read, this one didn’t seem to have any particular weak stories in it. (Hard to believe, I know, but he’s such a great writer that perhaps it’s not that tough to swallow.) I did learn an important lesson about how to read such an anthology, and that is not to read the stories back-to-back for ages. If you do that (or least this happened to me), the stories lose their special a bit by blending together, so my suggestion (learned from experience) is to space these stories out over a few days, just reading a few here and there with something else in-between.

I faced just that problem in the middle bit, and so when I reread this collection (which I will at some point – too good not to!), I’ll know not to binge on them.

If you’re familiar with Bradbury’s work, you’ll know what to expect: expert writing craftsmanship with a sci-fi set up but with a domestic and unexpected twist. You know – they remind me of that old British TV series called “Tales of the Unexpected” (who featured short stories written by Roald Dahl). The story is moving along a fairly predictable narrative arc until right at the end, there’s a helluva twist to wake you up.

The stories featured in “The Illustrated Man” were published between 1948-1981, so a wide breadth of influences but all with a common theme of space: aliens visit earth, earth humans visit Mars and so on – but usually with an overlay of larger societal issues (such as racism and other characteristics of the human race). I just loved it. (The mention of the Illustrated Man (in the title) is a rather tenuous connection tool to link these disparate stories together. The collection doesn’t really need it or use it though.)

Favorite stories? Ohh. Hard to pick because, really, all 18 of the stories were thoroughly enjoyable reads. There were some scary (to me) stories in the middle, so had to stop reading that patch at night, but then, when I next picked it up, either I had got braver or the stories were less scary. But so good!!

Luckily, Bradbury was a prolific writer and has loads of other works out there for me to track down. I can safely say that I’m an even stronger FanGirl than I was. 😉

Parable of the Sower – Octavia E. Butler (1993)

Following on with the POC reading theme and wanting some dystopian world to read about, I picked up Parable of the Sower (no “The”?) by Octavia E. Butler. Written as the first of a two-book series, this sci fi novel was published in 1993, and received a lot of critical acclaim including being selected as the 1994 NYT Notable Book of the Year (along with other lit awards). 

So – all signs pointed to a good read (as was an earlier of another Butler book) and I’m happy to report it was – enough so that now I’m searching for the second title (Parable of the Talents). (My library doesn’t seem to have that title but I’m probably going to have to take advantage of their great interlibrary loan program since I haven’t seen it on the shelves yet.)

(Random aside: In fact, there was also supposed to be a third title to make it in a trilogy, but it seems that Butler had serious writer’s block about this, and although she started this third novel a few times, it never materialized into a finished product. (However, I totally get and respect the writer’s block problem. No problem with that. 🙂 ))

The plot for this particular spec fic/sci fi read revolves around a young woman (variously called “girl” and “woman”) called Lauren Oya Olamina, who lives in the U.S. (or what used to be that nation) during the 2020s.

(This is not so far into the future as to be unbelievable and was one of the many points that really sold the novel to me. I love it when people invent worlds just a squidge off-center from real life as it is right now. Plus – I love that Butler is sensitive to the vocabulary she uses to describe her characters.)

Back to the book: Lauren has been living with her mum and dad and sibling in a small community, gated and walled to protect them from the marauding aggressive outsiders who surround them, trying to survive in the external extremely dog-eat-dog world caused by governmental collapse and all other economic and societal systems. 

As the troubles start to move closer to her small community, Lauren starts to seriously plan to move north to keep in front of these dangerous gangs. But how to do that?

Another new wrinkle has the introduction of new street drug called “pyro.” Pyro had the effect of making the act of setting a fire akin to the experience of really good s*x for its users, and so, of course, to “chase the dragon,” lots of these outside marauders end up being quickly addicted to it, making life difficult and challenging for everyone else. 

Along with this increasingly unpredictable situation is the fact that Lauren also possesses hyper-empathy, a human condition thought up by Butler which gives the individual the ability to feel the pain (and other sensations) from people she witnesses. Thus, if someone close to her vicinity gets hurt, both that person and Lauren experience the same amount of pain even if Lauren was only a spectator at the incident…

This can make it tricky for Lauren to be really effective when someone is very hurt as both she and the patient may be incapacitated at the same time – another complication to consider for both her and any future travelers in the group on her already-precarious northward journey.

Fully aware that the future task (and all its dangers) will be easier if she can get a small group together, she invites the brother of a neighbor along to add power in numbers. Planning continues apace, but when the pyro vandals burn down her own home (and others) which ends up killing most of her family (and that of her friend) one night, the goal to migrate north to safety gets moved up sooner than originally planned. It’s too dangerous to stay where she is right now…

Another great twist for this fast-moving plot is that there is also a vast shortage of water, so it’s an expensive but necessary product and has to be used carefully. This situation doesn’t help the pyro problem (not enough water to put out the frequent fires, people dealing with scarcity and all its related issues), and so the whole situation starts to get a little incendiary for all. (See what I did there? 🙂 )

With nothing for which to stay, the small group starts to journey north to reach Washington or Oregon where it rains more, pyro is not yet a “thing”, and life is (hopefully) not quite so difficult.

The plot then follows the ragged group as it gains members (and loses some) and treads along the miles of abandoned highways in their efforts to reach their own promised land up north. And how does it end…? You’ll need to read it to see! 🙂

(You know, this novel reminded me in some ways of the poor old Joads in Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” (1939) which describes a similar quest to reach the promised lands of California. I’ve read Grapes quite a few times, but it was mostly during grad school and that was a LONG time ago. Maybe I should refresh my memory to see if there are more overlapping homages to Grapes or other books in this Butler title…)

An excellent read, whether you dig sci fi or not… This might also be a really good book for someone not familiar with spec fiction in which to dip. There’s no robots, no Star Wars, no dragons. Just a good solid narrative arc that really made me care about the characters and pulled me in as a reader for a couple of days. Recommend this.

For another Octavia E. Butler read, try Kindred (review).

Summer Catch-Up: Flower beds and books (of course!)

So I’m at the beginning of summer break (woohoo) which is a great gift for faculty. All the graduates have gone off to explore their worlds and I have a space until the beginning of July to hang out and do stuff (or not, as the case may be). I wish I could share this with you all though.

So, what exactly have I been doing? Well. Let’s see…

I have redone the two flower beds in front of the house. This included removing every single river stone from each bed, planting some annuals in front and filling some gaps in the boxhedge, and then I’m now putting each of those river stones back in place. (Phew. A huge job for me, but it will look good when it’s done. See photos below for updates on progress.)

Flower bed #1 (after all stones pulled out). Ready for planting annuals and putting stones back.

Flower bed #2: halfway through the process (now completed).

I’ve also been reading, naturally, so seeing as it’s summer (and the living is easy :-)), I thought I’d just do some reviewlettes to keep caught up with the titles.

I had a fun read of R.C. Sheriff’s Greengates (1936), a domestic mid-century novel about an English couple who have to (re-) find themselves after the husband retires. Nothing too deep and meaningful, but just a good solid read. Just right after the end of the semester…  

I had a lovely peruse through a coffee table book on modern interior design and yearned for some of these rooms. (Unfortunately, I don’t happen to have one zillion dollars at the moment, but when I do… Yes.)

Called Interiors: Inside the American Home and edited by Marc Kristal (I think), these were not your average American home. No sirree bob. It was more along the level of perhaps the Kardashians, but it was still enjoyable to look at how the designs were for the rooms, and learn more about my own style. I can still pull the pieces of design that I really like and integrate it into my own home, yes?  

In the mood for short stories, preferably speculative fiction and by a POC, I went looking for some more Nalo Hopkinson and came from with the library edition of Mojo: Conjure Stories, an anthology edited by Hopkinson. This is a collection of short stories written by a variety of authors across the globe, but all POC and written through the lens of Caribbean and AfAm magic. (Magic is a little bit of a stretch for me to read, but the majority of these stories were fine… Only a few didn’t make the cut, in my opinion, but that’s to be expected with an anthology.)

Overall, this was a fun read so I’m open to reading more along those lines in the future.

And now I’m choosing my next read. Which one, which one… ? (Plus – finishing the flower beds!)

Oh, and plus this: I’m off to Canada in a couple of weeks for a conference, so been reading about Vancouver (where I’ll be)… Cool beans.

The New Moon’s Arms – Nalo Hopkinson (2007)

Having frequently heard of Nalo Hopkinson as a sci fi/speculative fiction author, and since I was in the mood for that sort of read, I checked out this title from the library. (I’d also been looking for a good fiction read by a POC author as well, so this ticked that box very nicely as well.)

So, not quite sure what to expect since Hopkinson was a completely new author to me, the first chapter got off to rather a rough start. OMG. It was so confusing – people change names for no apparent reason, there’s magical realism (which I wasn’t expecting), and there are animals who might (or might not) be mermaids/merpeople in disguise. 

So, taking a deep breath and really liking how Hopkinson writes, I soldiered on and interestingly it all got sorted out by the end of the second chapter. So – heed this warning. That first chapter is worth sticking with as the plot sorts itself out in the end. (And I must admit – the fault may have been mine, but just in case…) 

To the book itself: The narrative arc follows a redemption story, really, with a pretty unlikable and prickly character (she who changes names in the first chapter) and what happens when she takes in a child she finds on the beach of her Caribbean (or similar) island. 

Nalo Hopkinson. (Picture credit.)

Calamity (also called Chastity at certain parts) is dealing with two big situations at the moment. One is the death of her father (from whom she’s been estranged since her teenaged years) and the other is that whenever she has a hot flash due to menopause, her finger tips tingle and her long-lost childhood ability of finding lost things comes alive. The things found range from a blue and white plate from her childhood to an entire grove of cashew trees that materializes one day outside her house to the mysterious beach child with sea shells in his/her hair… 

At the same time as all this is going on, Chastity/Calamity’s also becoming more involved with the issue of the group of particular rare seals who live on one corner of her island home. She makes friends with a seal researcher and so throughout this narrative, there’s this collision (of sorts) between the roles and importance of science and myth, of magical realism and reality, of things unexplained by rational logic. 

Interestingly, there are collisions of other sorts as well: the protagonist has ongoing tussles with her relatives over various points; the arrival of the beach child causes concern for all when Calamity/Chastity decides to look after him/her; there’s discord between the protagonist and her father; there is the struggle at that point where the sea overlaps with the land, with science and magic… This turned out to be such a thoughtful read for me, so it was much than “just” magical realism/spec fiction. 

I’m not typically that huge a fan of magical realism, but this is mostly a straightforward drama with sprinkles of magic through in along the way, so I found it more palatable than I thought it was going to be. (I had it categorized as a broccoli book, but it was actually much better than that perception.)

In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed this read and thought that this was really a well-written book. One of the Goodread reviewers described the writing as almost liquid in a way, and that’s exactly how I viewed it. It’s a smooth read, like a stream running through rocks and roots – there are obstacles to face, but how they are handled by the characters runs really fluidly. 

This turned out to be really good read and I ended up completing it in two days (which is fast for me). I’m also convinced enough to look around and see what other library titles by Hopkinson are available. She’s that good. 

If you’re not familiar with Hopkinson, I recommend taking her work for a spin. It’s a deceptively easy read that will leave you with lots to think about. 

The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury (1977)

So, I’d been busy with school and life and after looking at my recent book reading, realized that I really wanted to read just a straight-forward non-hard-hitting fiction. Having had pretty good success with Bradbury in the past (Dandelion Wind /(1957), Fahrenheit 451(1953) and Farewell Summer (2009)), I dropped by the library to pick up “The Martian Chronicles”.

Its publishing date is 1977, but as it’s a compilation of short (connected) stories inside, the individual pub dates for each story vary from 1946-1950. I actually had little idea of what this book was about or how it was structured, so went in with a clean plate. Since I wasn’t clear that this was actually a collection of connected short stories (if they can be called that), I was mightily confused with the timeline at first, but once I’d figured out that this is a series of stories that follow on from one another, I got it sorted out. But hell’s bells. I was muddled at first.

In case you’re like I was with no clear idea of this read, the title may clue you in: The Martian Chronicles. “Chronicles” to me suggests something of a newspaper, and once I knew that that was the book’s basic structure, the stories started to make much more sense.

Each chapter/story is set on Mars as it becomes colonized by humans escaping from an Earth which has had a catastrophic event that has made it unlivable for humans.  The stories are in chronological order starting with the date of January 1999 and finishing with the date of October 2026, and since it was written way back in the mid-1940s, it’s fascinating to see what someone back then was forecasting for this possible future – now our immediate past and present. (See? It does get a bit confusing.)

However, by halfway through the read, I’d got the hang of things and I’d recommend that if you choose this title, you read it in one or two long sittings (instead of picking it up and putting it down). I tried that strategy of picking-up-and-putting-down, but once I realized that I was going to be able to follow the book much more easily if I just got reading in big chunks, the whole experience turned around and I really enjoyed the book.

Ray Bradbury with his hands out, circa 1980. (Photo by Tribune/Getty Images)

It’s interesting seeing how someone in the 1940s thought the future of the U.S. would be in 60-80 years’ time (which means that Bradbury’s future is actually now our present).

The book starts with a rocket landing on Mars in 1999, but it’s an early adventure for the space agency on earth, and so it’s more exploratory than anything. As the chronology continues apace, the years that each chapter represents are pretty close together until about the year 2005 when the story then jumps ahead to how Mars is in 2026.

Of course, since it’s written by an American, it’s an American-focused story but doesn’t seem to suffer from that and it’s definitely par for that time in history.

Bradbury tracks how Mars is gradually colonized over the years, and how this new society progresses, along with its troubling interactions with the native Mars people. As background, America in the 1940s was not yet in the big Space Race, there was some excitement and glamor about the whole thing but it was still rather vague. WWII was not that long ago for many people and their families, and so Bradbury’s America is very much a white-people-with-little-white-fences type of society and men are mostly in charge, although kudos to Bradbury for including one or two stories which do deal with race-relations issues.

Also, alongside this historical background, astronomers had been fascinated with Mars since the 19^th century, and early space-watchers had reported the red planet had straight lines on it, visible through their early telescopes. This gave rise to the idea that Mars had been colonized already and that the straight lines were actually man-made canals moving water from one area of the planet to another. Thus, it wasn’t such a huge leap to think that perhaps beings were already there.

As an aside, slightly random but interesting all the same: Bradbury has credited this book as being influenced by Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919 – yuck) and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939 – great read but no link), in terms of how they affected the novel’s actual structure and playing with time. (I can’t see any influence in this read, but perhaps others can. I didn’t get on very well with Anderson when I read him though. Maybe in their episodic structures?) 

Additionally, Bradbury credits Edgar Rice Burrough’s work (especially the Tarzan comic books)… (And as before, I’m having difficulty seeing the connection between this story and the Tarzan ones, but perhaps others may be more erudite than me…)

It’s not a particularly cheerful book, but it ended up being a great read, and I found it so interesting to see the 1940s’ prediction of future life in space, with both its accuracies and inaccuracies. Good one.