The Martian Chronicles. Ray Bradbury

      THE MARTlAN CHRONlCLES

      RAY BRADBURY

       Copyright

      Voyager

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by

      Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd 1951 under the title The Silver Locusts Panther Books 1977 publication also entitled The Silver Locusts

      Copyright © Ray Bradbury 1951

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

      Cover images © Shutterstock.com (figures); Nasa (backround).

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

      Source ISBN: 9780007119622

      Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007496976 Version: 2015–01–29

       Dedication

      For My Wife Marguerite

      with all my love

       Epigraph

      ‘It is good to renew one’s wonder,’

      said the philosopher. ‘Space travel has again made children of us all.’

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

January 1999 ROCKET SUMMER

February 1999 YLLA

August 1999 THE SUMMER NIGHT

August 1999 THE EARTH MEN

March 2000 THE TAXPAYER

April 2000 THE THIRD EXPEDITION

       June 2001 – AND THE MOON BE STILL AS BRIGHT

       August 2001 THE SETTLERS

       December 2001 THE GREEN MORNING

       February 2002 THE LOCUSTS

       August 2002 NIGHT MEETING

       October 2002 THE SHORE

       November 2002 THE FIRE BALLOONS

       February 2003 INTERIM

       April 2003 THE MUSICIANS

       June 2003 WAY UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR

       2004–05 THE NAMING OF NAMES

       August 2005 THE OLD ONES

       September 2005 THE MARTIAN

       November 2005 THE LUGGAGE STORE

       November 2005 THE OFF SEASON

       November 2005 THE WATCHERS

       December 2005 THE SILENT TOWNS

       April 2026 THE LONG YEARS

       August 2026 THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS

       October 2026 THE MILLION-YEAR PICNIC

       Keep Reading

       About the Author

       Also by the Author

       About the Publisher

       JANUARY 1999

       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.