• The Martian Chronicles

  • By: Ray Bradbury
  • Narrated by: Mark Boyett
  • Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (3,767 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Martian Chronicles  By  cover art

The Martian Chronicles

By: Ray Bradbury
Narrated by: Mark Boyett
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.95

Buy for $19.95

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Mars was a distant shore, and the men spread upon it in wave.... Each wave different, and each wave stronger.

Ray Bradbury is a storyteller without peer, a poet of the possible, and, indisputably, one of America's most beloved authors. In a much-celebrated literary career that has spanned six decades, he has produced an astonishing body of work: unforgettable novels, including Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes; essays, theatrical works, screenplays and teleplays; The Illustrated Mein, Dandelion Wine, The October Country, and numerous other superb short story collections. But of all the dazzling stars in the vast Bradbury universe, none shines more luminous than these masterful chronicles of Earth's settlement of the fourth world from the sun.

Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor - of crystal pillars and fossil seas - where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn - first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is a classic work of 20th-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time's passage. In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster once again enthralls, delights, and challenges us with his vision and his heart - starkly and stunningly exposing in brilliant spacelight our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.

©1945, 1946, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977 Ray Bradbury (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Featured Article: Who's the best? Rediscover the greatest, most notable American writers of all time


To curate a list of famous American writers who are also considered among the best American authors, a few things count: current ratings for their works, their particular time periods in history, critical reception, their prevalence in the 21st century, and yes, the awards they won. Many of these authors are taught in school today. From Hemingway to Harper Lee, these famous American authors are all worthy of enduring recognition—and a fresh listen!

What listeners say about The Martian Chronicles

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2,265
  • 4 Stars
    913
  • 3 Stars
    425
  • 2 Stars
    114
  • 1 Stars
    50
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2,463
  • 4 Stars
    656
  • 3 Stars
    165
  • 2 Stars
    34
  • 1 Stars
    16
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,965
  • 4 Stars
    764
  • 3 Stars
    401
  • 2 Stars
    131
  • 1 Stars
    59

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The Original. Great Stories, Great Narrator.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

The Martian Chronicles is a classic for a reason. In recent years editors have monkeyed with the stories, changing the timeline of the story and removing some stories/adding others. This is the original lineup, with a great narrator.

You should be aware, though, that most of the core stories were written in different years and published in pulp magazines first, and not in the order they appear in the book. This leads to little inconsistencies that are bothersome if you try to view the stories as a coherent whole. Instead, you should think of each story as happening in a slightly different dimension from the last one. Appreciate the stories on their own and don't get hung up on little differences.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

141 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Best Narrator

The Martian Chronicles is a collection of short stories that are beautifully woven together to make for a haunting read.

The over-arching story takes place in the future when earth is amidst chaos and nuclear war is about to erupt. Earth men make many expeditions to the red planet to escape and search for life. You'll have to listen to find out what happens when they get there.

Mark Boyett does an amazing job with the narration. I've listened to some of the other narrators for this book and Boyett does it best! <3

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

70 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Masterful Storytelling

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would only recommend this audiobook to fellow Ray Bradbury fans. He is not everyone's cup of tea because he is more of a short story writer. He wove these martian stories together to tell a compelling collection of stories within an overall narrative arc.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Martian Chronicles?

My two favorite stories were "Way in the Middle of the Air" when blacks fled the South for Mars and "Usher II," Bradbury's ode and tribute to Poe's story "The House of Usher." Bradbury showed he was at the top of his game in creativity and insight into human behavior.

Which scene was your favorite?

The two aforementioned stories were my favorite scenes.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Yes, this book made me laugh at many points, but what struck me was the poetry of Bradbury's prose. He is a beautiful, passionate writer. His prose is vivid and feels like a long prose poem.

Any additional comments?

Mark Boyett does a masterful job at performing all of these characters, both human and Martian. I can see and hear them. I had the great pleasure to meet Bradbury at book signings in Los Angeles. He was my favorite writer as a teen, and I still love him. Thank you, Ray, for sharing your passion and for giving us the gift of your stories.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

47 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

... a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.

“We earth men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.”
― Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

For the last couple years I've been dipping into some of my favorite books as a kid. Re-reading Bradbury's Martian Chronicles as an adult, like earlier reads of The Illustrated Man and Dandelion Wine, was totally worth it. Each read of Bradbury elevates him in my mind.

As an adult, I see the stories in bigger terms. Less about big "s" Space or Mars or martians, and more about race, colonialism, environmentalism, war, loneliness, isolation, family, death. It feels more relevant today than it did when I read it 30-years ago, and more relevant perhaps than it did when it was originally published (some stories over 70-years ago). Obviously, a lot of this is because of my experiences during the last 30 years, and some of these stories were VERY relevant when first published. I'm thinking of "Way in the Middle of the Air", published in 1950. Bradbury's take on race and racism was sharp and clean. The story carried a punch.

Anyway, Bradbury is/was a literary light and treasure.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

28 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Stirring.

Dated, yet timeless; beautifully narrated. I was almost disappointed when it ended. I want to somehow know more.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

25 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

If Conestogas Were Rocket Ships

Like so many classics we should have read in school, Ray Bradbury’s fantastic portrait of an alien world is a welcome discovery, even now. Most of its 28 episodes were published earlier, in science fiction magazines, and a few were created for the book in 1950.

They are exquisitely constructed little stories. Almost every one could be a novel in itself. At first they seem disjointed—disparate pieces that gradually take shape as a coherent and compelling whole. In roughly chronological sequence, and with occasional recurring characters, the people of earth flee a devastating war and seek to colonize Mars, with disturbing similarities to a younger America’s conquest of the West and its native people. There are the earliest rocket trips, most of them fatal to the newcomers, who are no match for the wily, telepathic Martians. Then settlers in greater numbers take hold, and finally, “the old ones” arrive, with a flourish of Bradbury’s evocative descriptive powers:

“And what more natural than that at last, the old people come to Mars, following in the trail left by the loud frontiersmen, the aromatic sophisticates, and the professional travelers and romantic lecturers in search of new grist. 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 shared 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.”

The diversity of settings and subjects in these scenes is dizzying: the explorers lured into a Martian insane asylum, a “Johnny Appleseed” character determined to make the Red Planet green with trees to pump oxygen into the thin atmosphere, small boys exploring a dead Martian city and playing music on white xylophones that are really bleached rib cages, and a bigoted town in the American South, whose entire black population suddenly drops everything to embark on a fleet of rockets to Mars. There is even a man who gets even for government book-burnings by building a working replica of Poe’s House of Usher, a nod to Bradbury’s later classic, “Fahrenheit 451.”

The stories are original and intriguing, but together they paint a gloomy picture of colonization in which humankind can’t settle in a new place without changing it to seem familiar. One rocket crosses the expanses of space loaded with lumber to build houses just like the ones back home. As someone who happens to live abroad, it made me squirm.

Kudos to Mark Boyett for a smart, expressive narration. He embraces fascinating characters and plot twists, and breathes life into a brilliant but slightly stilted midcentury writing style.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A Thoughtful series of Tales

The narration was superb and at many times reminded me of the appropriate era of acting. (Captain Kirk came to mind when the stories' captains were taking charge.)

As the title suggests, this is not one story, but a series of stories throughout the early human colonization of Mars. Some of the tales are loosely linked, whereas others are stand-alone short stories that happen to take place in the setting of the book.

A great read/listen for any sci-fi fan or simply a fan of good literature.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

A mixed bag - still, Bradbury

A collection of loosely tied short stories, some haunting, some absurdist, some suspenseful - all carry with them that dash of Bradbury poetry - something often dreamlike ... I enjoyed this “novel” overall less than Something Wicked, Fahrenheit - or even Dandelion Wine ... still, one could do worse than spending a few hours in any Bradbury world - even if that world is an oddly vague one on Mars.

Now, if you want to read the basic idea of humanity exploration of space to entirely different level - read Isaac Asimov's Foundation.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Worth it

There is so much to learn from these stories- about colonization, racism, censorship, fascism, immigration, civilization, and technology. There are multiple parallels in these stories to events that have occurred in our own history, and the stories make space for some meaningful conversations. My only critique of Bradbury's stories is a notable absence of women characters with substance.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • GT
  • 07-19-16

Fantastic tales, fantastic narrator

Absolutely worth it. Some of these stories are real jaw droppers. Can't get enough Bradbury for sure. Got this after listening to The Illustrated Man - also highly recommend.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful