At the Earth's Core
The keystone hollow-earth adventure, launching a seven-book series (Tarzan eventually visits).
Book Entry · Science Fiction
What is The Martian Chronicles about?
A story-cycle of humanity's colonisation of Mars: the telepathic Martians repel early expeditions in episodes of dreamlike irony, then are casually annihilated by chickenpox, and the settlers arrive to build hot-dog stands among crystal ruins until nuclear war calls them home. Bradbury's Mars owes nothing to astronomy and everything to small-town Illinois, Poe and elegy; standouts include 'There Will Come Soft Rains', in which an automated house carries on after the bomb, and ' — And the Moon Be Still as Bright'. SF as American myth, gorgeous and accusatory at once.
Why it matters
The book that carried science fiction into the literary mainstream in 1950, reviewed rapturously by Christopher Isherwood. A permanent classic, much adapted, never matched.
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