Rocket Summer: Introducing The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition

Welcome to Rocket Summer, where I’ll be blogging throughout the next couple of months about the new, long-awaited, already-sold-out, signed, limited, 750-page, expanded edition of the Ray Bradbury magnum opus, The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition (2009, Subterranean Press & PS Publishing). This beautiful volume, dedicated “From all who worked on this special edition to the Wizard of Mars himself, Ray Bradbury” and which I will be giving away at the end of the summer, is divided into several parts:

Part One: The Martian Chronicles (the classic stories)

• Meeting the Wizard, an introduction by John Scalzi (2009, excerpt)

• The Long Road to Mars, Introduction to 40th Anniversary Edition, by Ray Bradbury (1990, excerpt)

• Green Town, Somewhere On Mars; Mars, Somewhere in Egypt, An Introduction, by Ray Bradbury (2009, excerpt)

• Rocket Summer
• Ylla
• The Summer Night
• The Earth Men
• The Taxpayer
• The Third Expedition
• -- And the Moon Be Still as Bright
• The Settlers
• The Green Morning
• The Locusts
• Night Meeting
• The Shore
• The Fire Balloons
• Interim
• The Musicians
• The Wilderness
• The Naming of Names
• Usher II
• The Old Ones
• The Martian
• The Luggage Store
• The Off Season
• The Watchers
• The Silent Towns
• The Long Years
• There Will Come Soft Rains
• The Million-Year Picnic

Part Two: Additional Materials

• How I Wrote My Book, an essay by Ray Bradbury (1950, excerpt)

Part Three: The Other Martian Tales (previously uncollected or unpublished stories)

• Undiscovered Mars, Unseen Bradbury, an introduction by Joe Hill (2009)

• The Lonely Ones (1949)
• The Exiles (1950)
• The One Who Waits (1949)
• The Disease (2009)
• Dead of Summer (2009)
• The Martian Ghosts (2009)
• Jemima True (2009)
• They All Had Grandfathers (2009)
• The Strawberry Window (1954)
• Way in the Middle of the Air (1950)
• The Other Foot (1951)
• The Wheel (2009)
• The Love Affair (1982)
• The Marriage (2009)
• The Visitor (1948)
• The Lost City of Mars (1967)
• Holiday (1949)
• Payment in Full (1950)
• The Messiah (1971)
• Night Call, Collect (1949)
• The Blue Bottle (1950)
• Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed (1949)

• Lost Mars, The Unpublished Martian Stories of Ray Bradbury, an afterword by Marc Scott Zicree (2009, excerpt)

Part Four: The Screenplays (previously unpublished)

• For Ray Bradbury, an introduction by Richard Matheson (2005, excerpt)

• The Martian Chronicles, 1963 Screenplay by Ray Bradbury
• The Martian Chronicles, 1997 Screenplay by Ray Bradbury

Color Illustrations by Edward Miller

• The Third Expedition
• -- And the Moon be Still as Bright
• The Locusts
• The Off Season
• There Will Come Soft Rains


[BREAKING NEWS: The Los Angeles Times reports that American film producer John Davis, the man behind such science-fiction films as Predator (1987) and I, Robot (2004), has optioned the film rights to The Martian Chronicles!]