I just finished re-reading the book and am reluctant to view the videos right now. I'm afraid I'd be disappointed in the TV adaption and the depiction of the golden people, the fluted columns of rain, the harp book ... just everything. Has anyone seen the mini-series?

Marvelle

YLLA:  Why were Mr and Mrs K unhappy?  He's portrayed as a  rude, jealous tyrant  and I don't blame her for dreaming about Mr. "Right" even if he would beam up as  an alien.  It's sad to think that other planets might experience the same downfalls, hatreds and cynicism as we encounter right here on earth.  Is that what he was trying to say?  Mr and Mrs. are in the tedium of their marriage? I guess that answers the next question in re. to "human" likeness.

What's with the name YLLA?  Why did RB choose that name as well as Dr Nlle?
Everything seems breathless in this chapter, waiting, waiting and in the end, she looks at the empty desert, exhausted.
Have any of you ever had a telepathic experience?
 

Mr. K turned away. She stopped him with a word. "Yll?" she called quietly. "Do you wonder if - well, if there are people living on the third planet?"

"The third planet is incapable of supporting life," stated the husband patiently. "Our scientists have said there's far too much oxygen in their athmosphere."

"But wouldn't it be fascinating if there were people? And they travelled through space in some sort of ship?"

Wouldn't that be great to run your hands over a text and have it sing  out the words to you?
Welcome gramof2: Is this your first book discussion?  We're delighted to have you join us.
 

Nellie will be here shortly to guide us.

"He...went to the closet, and drew forth an evil weapon. He turned, and upon his face was a mask, hammered from silver metal, expressionless, the mask that he always wore when he wished to hide his feelings."

chronicle(Kran'.i.kl) n. a register of events in order of time; a history or account; v.t. to record in order of time. -r n. [Gk. chronica, annals, fr. chronos, time]

But, he thought, just suppose... Just suppose, now, that there were Martians living on Mars and they saw our ship coming and saw us inside our ship and hated us. Suppose, now, just for the hell of it, that they wanted to destroy us, as invaders, as unwanted ones, and they wanted to do it in a very clever way, so that we would be taken off guard. Well, what would the best weapon be that a Martian could use against Earth Men with atomic weapons?

The answer was interesting. Telepathy, hypnosis, memory, and imagination.

"If it (Martian Chronicles) had been practical, technologically efficient science fiction, it would have long since fallen to rust by the road. But since it is a self-separating fable, even the most deeply rooted physicists at Cal-Tech accept breathing the fraudulent oxygen atmosphere I have loosed on Mars. Science and machines can kill each other off and be replaced. Myth, seen in mirrors, incapable of being touched, stays on. If it is not immortal, it almost seems such. Perhaps my Mars still has a few more years of impossible life."

"Did you notice the peculiar quiet of the men, Spender, until Biggs forced them to get happy? They looked pretty humble and frightened. Looking at all this, we know we're not so hot; we're kids in rompers, shouting with our rockets and atoms, loud and alive. But one day Earth will be as Mars is today. This will sober us. It's an object lesson in civilizations. We'll learn from Mars. ..."

"His ear to the ground, he could hear the feet of the years ahead moving at a distance, and he imagined the seeds he had placed today sprouting up with green and taking hold on the sky, pushing out branch after branch, until Mars was an afternoon forest, Mars was a shining orchard."

"Let us agree to disagree," said the Martian. "What does it matter who is Past or Future, if we are both alive, for what follows will follow, tomorrow or in ten thousand years. How do you know that those temples are not the temples of your own civilization one hundred centuries from now, tumbled and broken? You do not know. Then don't ask. But the night is very short. There go the festival fires in the sky, and the birds."

"The way I see it is there's a Truth on every planet. All parts of the Big Truth. On a certain day they'll all fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw. For this Truth here is as true as Earth's Truth, and they lie side by side. And we'll go on to other worlds. adding the sum of the parts of the Truth until one day the whole Total will stand before us like the light of a new day."

"Sixty million miles." She moved at last to the window as if it were a deep well, "I can't believe that men on Mars tonight are building towns, waiting for us."

"The only thing to believe is catching our Rocket tomorrow." Janice raised a white gown like a ghost in the room.

"Strange, strange. To marry--on another world. I'm scared."

"Our last night on Earth."

Marvelle

And so the dry and crackling people, the people who spent their time listening to their hearts and feeling their pulses and spooning syrups into their wry mouths, these people who once had taken chair cars to California in November and third-class steamers to Italy in April, the dried-apricot people, the mummy people, came at last to Mars. ...

A fantasy should never be scrutinized too closely, for being the stuff of the imagination and existing only in the minds of the creator and the reader, listener, watcher, it will dissipate like a mirage if looked at too closely. As someone said -I believe it was Tolkien- it is important to 'suspend your disbelief' when reading any story that came out of someone's imagination and accept it and the things in it as being true...

Timothy looked at the deep ocean sky, trying to see Earth and the war and the ruined cities and the men killing each other since the day he was born. But he saw nothing. The war was as removed and far off as two flies battling to the death in the arch of a great high and silent cathedral. And just as senseless.

"What are you looking at so hard, Dad?"
"I was looking for Earthian logic, common sense, good government, peace, and responsibility."
"All that up there?"
"No, I didn't find it. It's not there any more. Maybe it'll never be there again. Maybe we fooled ourselves that it was ever there."

"I've always wanted to see a Martian," said Michael. "Where are they, Dad? You promised."
"There they are," said Dad, and he shifted Michael on his shoulder and pointed straight down.
The Martians were there. Timothy began to shiver
The Martians were there -in the canal- reflected in the water. Timothy and Michael and Robert and Mom and Dad.
The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water. ...

"What are you looking at so hard, Dad?"
"I was looking for Earthian logic, common sense, good government, peace and responsibility. I didn't find it. It's not there any more...maybe we fooled ourselves that it was ever there."