Ray Bradbury's 1950 novel "Martian Chronicles" gave us a look through Martian eyes to show that our arrival might not be seen with as much enthusiasm as we might like to imagine. Maybe our little Mars Lander has fallen into the hands of Martians who aren't interested in humans with their disposable razors and plentiful plastic goods. Post World War II science fiction is almost invariably bleak, especially in the hands of Bradbury. "The Martian Chronicles" is more a collection of vignettes than a strict novel and in that way Bradbury takes the reader through the stages of human colonization, from the Martians' point of view as well as the humans'. I just love this man.

I read the Martian Chronicles in my early years of high school and barely understood it-- but I LOVED Farenheit 451! And these books introduced me to Bradbury's haunting style. His story "The Veldt," among others, seems to have that scary quality, tempered with a bit of humor and absurdity.

The purpose of the time machine described in Ray Bradbury's 1969 short story, "The Kilimanjaro Device." In a touching use of science fiction to pay tribute to one of his icons, Bradbury describes a time machine, the sole purpose of which is to return Ernest Hemingway to the snow-capped peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro. Feeling that Hemingway's suicide in the hills of Ketchum, Idaho, was a result of wrong causes and wrong time, the protagonist finds Papa walking by the roadside and delivers his pitch to return him to the slopes of Kilimanjaro. "The Kilimanjaro Device" is from the short story collection "I Sing the Body Electric", the title itself a nod to the great Walt Whitman and his 1855 poem of the same name.

My favourite Ray Bradbury novel has to be "The Illustrated Man". Excellent short stories interspersed with an ongoing tale of a man's tatoos which show the stories... If you haven't read it - it is a MUST!!