Several early modern writers, including Athanasius Kircher and Emanuel Swedenborg, hypothesized contact with Mars. Early science fiction about Mars often involved the first voyages to the planet, sometimes as an invasion force, more often for the purposes of exploration.
Prominent early works about Mars prior to 1910:
Across the Zodiac (1880) by Percy Greg. The narrator flies his craft, the “Astronaut,” to visit diminutive beings on Mars.
Uranie (1889, translated as Urania in 1890) by Camille Flammarion. A young astronomer and his fiancée are killed in a ballooning accident and are reincarnated in new bodies on Mars.
Melbourne and Mars: My Mysterious Life on Two Planets (1889) by Joseph Fraser. A sick man named Jacobs starts having visions in his sleep, which turns out to be a telepathic link between him and a child called Charlie Frankston, his other self on Mars, who lives in a technological utopia.
Mr. Stranger’s Sealed Packet (1889 ) by Hugh MacColl. People from Earth travel to Mars in a flying machine, and find peaceful Martians that are technologically inferior to humans with a few exceptions like voice-recording devices and electric lighting.
A Plunge into Space (1890) by Robert Cromie. Dedicated to Jules Verne, the character Henry Barnett learns how to control the ethereal force which combines electricity and gravity and “which permeates all material things, all immaterial space”, and secretly builds a globular spaceship called the “Steel Globe”. Barnett and some friends travel to Mars and find a society where there is no need for politicians, and Martians who travel in airships or flying through levitation.
Unveiling a Parallel (1893) by Alice Ilgenfritz Jones and Ella Merchant. The authors use a journey to Mars as the frame for a utopian feminist novel.
Journey to Mars (1894) by Gustavus W. Pope. An adventure story that may have influenced Edgar Rice Burroughs’s later books.
A Prophetic Romance (1896) by John McCoy. Reversing the usual pattern, the book brings a Martian visitor to Earth for a utopian novel.
Auf zwei Planeten (1897) by Kurd Lasswitz. A Martian expedition to Earth takes Earthmen back to visit Mars; interplanetary war follows the initially peaceful contact. Lasswitz’s Martians are human in appearance, but with much larger eyes.
The War of the Worlds (1898) by H. G. Wells. Features an attack on England by cephalopod like Martians and their advanced technology to employ fighting machines to decimate the world.
Edison’s Conquest of Mars (1898) by Garrett P. Serviss. In this Edisonade, Earthmen respond to an attack from Mars with a successful genocide of the Martian race.
A Honeymoon in Space (1900), by George Griffith. A young couple on a journey through the solar system are captured by hostile Martians.
Gullivar of Mars (1905) by Edwin Lester Arnold. An Edwardian fantasy in which Gullivar Jones travels to Mars on a magic carpet and interacts with the slothful but innocent Hithers and the brutish but honorable Thithers.
Doctor Omega (1906) by Arnould Galopin. A crew of explorers from Earth visit a Mars inhabited by reptilian mermen, savage dwarf-like beings with long, tentacled arms, bat-men and a race of civilized macrocephalic gnomes.
Le prisonnier de la planète Mars [Vampires of Mars] (1908) and its sequel c (1909) by Gustave Le Rouge. French engineer Robert Darvel is dispatched to Mars by the psychic powers of Hindu Brahmins. On the Red Planet, he runs afoul of hostile, bat-winged, blood-sucking natives, a once-powerful civilization now ruled by the Great Brain.
Red Star (1908) by Alexander Bogdanov. The narrator is taken to Mars, which is imagined as a socialist utopia.
As a military brat, the end of the school year always meant Little League Baseball. As an eleven years old boy in May of 1965, three things occupied me life. They were Boy Scouts, baseball, and a little garage band I had just joined.
Spring and the start of the baseball season never failed to give me dreams of playing professional baseball. “Tryout Saturday,” as we called it back then, was a day when coaches and managers could see your talents. They woul have us field ground balls, catch pop flys, and take batting practice.
I could catch or knock down any baseball hit my way. My father had taught me to get in front of the ball and let my body help knock it down if it missed my glove. I could then pick up the ball and throw out the runner. I could hit the cover of a baseball in 1965. I was the only kid my age that was a switch hitter. When batting right-handed I could hit the ball over the fence with regularity. When hitting left-handed I was more a contact hitter. I would knock the ball to all fields hitting for a high batting average. I was good. I knew it. My dad knew it. The coaches and managers knew it.
Selected second overall, I went to the Cardinals. Also on my team was Bobby Mars. He was in the band that had recently asked me to be their rhythm guitarist. Bobby could do something I could never do consistently. He could sing lead. I’m talking about a pop star, rock idol, lead singer quality voice. He had a voice that the girls swooned over.
Bobby got all the boys on the team to sing. The song of choice was Herman’s Hermits (featuring Peter Noone on lead vocals) “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter.” I started bringing an acoustic six-string guitar to baseball practice. I put my handkerchief close to the bridge of the guitar body to mute the sound. It gave an almost banjo-like sound. We would sing “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” over and over.
The first time we would sing using the correct lyrics. Then we would begin substituting the last name of the every boy on the baseball team like “Mrs. Smith” or “Mrs. Jones” instead of “Mrs. Brown”. We would always end with Mrs. Mars You’ve Got a Lovely Martian and giggle. We sang the tune with a heavy, fake British accent.
One of the things that made the song, so appealing was Peter Noone. He was barely five or six years older than me and the boys on the team. Many had brothers his age. When we watched him on Shindig, American Bandstand, Hullabaloo and Where the Action Is. Peter had a charisma that we only saw elsewhere in The Beatles.
The musical summer of 1965 was special. The music of Herman’s Hermits “Mrs. Brown” and The Beatles “Ticket to Ride” captured our imagination. The Beach Boys “Help Me, Rhonda” and The Byrds “Mr. Tambourine Man” blasted from our little AM radios. The Rolling Stones “Satisfaction” became the first rock anthem our lives. Herman’s Hermits “I’m Henry VIII, I Am” had us singing along once more with Peter Noone.
We also followed the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers baseball teams in the newspapers and on the radio. After all, El Paso where I lived on Biggs Air Force Base, was about halfway between Houston and Los Angeles.
Music filled the summer days. Baseball filled the summer nights.
“The Green Morning” first appeared in The Martian Chronicles.
The next several chapters describe the transformation of Mars into another Earth. Small towns similar to those on Earth begin to grow.
In “The Green Morning”, one man, Benjamin Driscoll, makes it his mission to plant thousands of trees on the red plains so oxygen levels will increase. Due to some property of the Martian soil, the trees he plants grow into a mighty forest in a single night.
A 1997 edition of the book advances all the dates by 31 years. This story advances from 2001 to 2032.
This 1997 short story collection is uneven and at times weak. There is less fantasy or science fiction than in many of Bradbury’s earlier works. All but four of the stories are new. A snapshot of the collection is seen in some of the themes.
In the short story “Remember Me?” we find the theme of meeting a familiar face in a distant place.
The theme of children’s storytelling and kissing games is found in “House Divided”.
The theme of looking up an old flame is in “I Wonder What’s Become of Sally?”.
One of my favorite themes, the revenge of the nerd everybody picked on is the theme of “The Highest Branch on the Tree”.
But the book has some terrific moments. Examples are when Bradbury recalls a tiny, dusty, moth-eaten Mexican circus, tells the hilarious story of Irish drinking buddies looking for a safe place in the bogs to take a woman, and yet another tale of perfect love squandered (“Madame et Monsieur Shill”).
If you’re new to Bradbury, this will do nicely, but for veteran readers it’s a bit of same old same old.
My access card unlocked the door. As I stepped inside, motion detectors turned on banks of fluorescent lights filling the room with near-blinding white light. A blast of refrigerated air caused goose bumps to form on my arms and the nape of my neck. Tiny pulsating blue, green, yellow, and red LED bulbs filled the room signaling the nonstop activity of one thousand computer servers.
The dancing signals reminded me of Mercy Hospital’s biomedical equipment. For months, as I sat in mother’s hospital room I watched them flash their never-ending warnings.
While I never understood the lines on the heart monitor, I knew if the line went flat, doctors and nurses raced trying to save the patient. If they could not resuscitate her, hearts broke. I knew the monitor’s continuous flat line pronounced death. Soon after that proclamation, a doctor with solemn eyes would confirm the machine’s decree. In time, the chaplain followed offering religious comfort in whatever denominational flavor the family preferred.
Breast cancer consumed mother. She wasted away under the machines’ watch care. The lights danced their death ritual. The beeps disturbing her rest until the lines on the heart monitor screen pointed to eternity. Then, she was gone.
“It’s on the second server rack,” said Andrew, the night computer operator. His voice broke my reminiscing. He pointed to my left making sure I knew where our problem child resided.
My thoughts focused on why I hurried to work at two o’clock in the morning. I moved over to the finicky server. I started my diagnosis by connecting the keyboard, mouse, and flat-panel monitor that made up the crash cart as we called it. As I leaned in for a look, I placed my left hand behind my back.
“I found your problem,” I yelled in a voice that boomed over the roar of the servers, switches, and air conditioners.
Scratching the stubble on his chin, Andrew said, “Wha – what was wrong?”
I stood up straight glaring at Andrew. “The server hung up when rebooting. It’s right here on the screen. That’s why we couldn’t access it with a remote connection. My guess is it happened when you restarted it after applying the patches. It’s rebooting now. Yes, it’s starting okay.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Andrew, that’s something you have to find and fix on your own if you want to work here long-term. I should troubleshoot and repair this. You just hook up a crash cart as I did, check the monitor, find the problem and fix it. I’ll check the log files in the morning. Open a Severity 3 problem ticket. Assign it to me. Keep an eye on it, but I don’t expect any problems.”
“Thank you, James. You know I hate to call and wake you up.”
I nodded.
“Idiot,” I thought
“I appreciate it. I would be in a fix without you. Go home. Enjoy the company of your bride,” Andrew said.
I understood. It seemed most of my coworkers were surprised at both my recent marriage and that I wed someone as beautiful and charming as Kat.
“Please give my apology to your Katherine,” he said with an even bigger grin adding a wink.
“I hope the rest of your night is quiet. If you must know, I was just trying to get to sleep – as if it’s any of your business,” I said as I headed for the door.
The servers’ blue, green, yellow, and red lights flashed their goodbyes to me. They reminded me of the conversation Kat, and I had that evening. At first, we were trying to make sense out of life while dreaming of a bright future and long life together. Then I talked about mother’s death while Kat listened. Next, we discussed how the grim reaper had a destiny with everyone. Just before the call, our conversation had shifted to mother’s twin sister Elizabeth.
Aunt Elizabeth became a dedicated vegetarian, runner of marathons and breast cancer activist in the two years between mother’s death and her own malignancy’s diagnosis. Since her tumor’s discovery, she had morphed from athletic and energetic to a bed-ridden skeleton, unable to take care of herself or even control routine bodily functions. The grim reaper was at her door, knocking. I didn’t know how soon the door would open, but I knew it would open.
Before her cancer, Aunt Elizabeth lived an active lifestyle. That changed. A routine self-exam while showering discovered the lump. A mammogram followed. Then the biopsy, the radiation treatments, having a double, radical mastectomy “just to be safe” she had said and now the metastatic breast cancer at only age 47, the death sentence.
My grandparents, Aunt Elizabeth’s parents, were dead. She didn’t have any brothers. My mother, her only sister, had died four years. She had never married. Had no partner and had never had children. I was her only living relative.
After marriage, Kat and I rented the other half of Aunt Elizabeth’s duplex. Kat had become her closest friend and as the daughter, she wished she had. My wife loved her more than she loved her mother, doing what she could to care for her, trying to make her comfortable. Kat was in total denial of my aunt’s condition.
#
One day Aunt Elizabeth’s physician said the end was near. She had less than three months. The doctor recommended she get her personal affairs in order and immediate hospice care if for nothing more than providing Kat, and I support as we cared for her. She had removed her glasses getting serious when the physician added the hospice could also provide something to mask the ever-increasing pain.
“James,” Aunt Elizabeth said struggling to catch her breath. “The drugs scare me.”
“I understand.” I held her hand looking at the fear in her eyes.
She continued in a breathy, low voice, “No, I’m not sure you do. Those drugs are both evil and good. The masking of pain is their benefit. James, I fear they will destroy my mental faculties. That frightens me more than death. I don’t want to fade into a drug induced stupor where I don’t recognize Kat or you.”
I nodded.
#
Each morning before work, I checked on Aunt Elizabeth. My routine was taking her a cup of black coffee and bowl of grits for breakfast. She loved grits. She would add sugar and real butter, not that artificial margarine. She also savored her coffee nursing it to last all morning.
Kat’s job permitted her to work from home allowing her to check on our patient every few hours.
One Saturday morning after breakfast when Kat wasn’t there, Aunt Elizabeth had a frank talk with me.
“James,” she said. “I’ve decided to stop all treatments. It’s time to face reality. I am going to die. I want to depart this life with a clear mind. I may wither away as the cancer destroys my body, but I don’t want the long death your mother went through or any hospitals.”
I looked at Aunt Elizabeth. Her words were heading where I wasn’t expecting. “Go on,” I heard my voice say.
“I’m not afraid of dying. We all have to face it. I’m going to embrace death. I’ve decided to go to heaven in the next few days,” she said.
I watched her facial expressions as she next shared how her faith would sustain her through the passage from this life to the next. I smiled as she even shared her Christian faith trying to make sure I would join her and mother one day in heaven. I tried not being too annoyed as she pressed me for a reply, not to her evangelization of me, but that I assist in her suicide.
I remembered mother’s suffering. I wanted better for Aunt Elizabeth.
“James, I can’t do this by myself. I don’t have the means to get the required medication to put me to sleep … permanent like. You must help.”
I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth as I replied, “Yes, I’ll help.” I could not believe I gave such a cavalier answer.
#
At work that morning, all I could do is think about what I had agreed to do. I knew it was the right decision, but I had agreed to kill Aunt Elizabeth. I took the afternoon off as I was face to face with an ethical dilemma. I had agreed to help Aunt Elizabeth commit suicide.
I hadn’t drunk since I was in the army, but that day I downed my first liquor in over five years. I drank and drank, as the finality of the decision I made became reality. The bartender had to call Kat to come rescue me from myself.
“What the devil are you doing drinking?” asked Kat as she sat down on the stool beside me. Irritation was in her voice and on her face.
I looked up with a sheepish grin on my face.
“Hello, my love,” I said.
“Don’t you hello my love me. Why are you drinking? Dammit, you know you can’t handle alcohol.”
“Hello, my love. You look beautiful when you are mad. Work, yes, work, that’s why, and Aunt Elizabeth and the economy,” I replied.
I knew Kat would never agree to my decision. I could never broach the subject with her. She hadn’t been around to see mother’s suffering. She didn’t fathom how much worse it would get. She was too noble and virtuous for assisting in a suicide.
“How could you!” was her last comment as she helped me to the car.
I smiled a broad grin showing my teeth.
She glared at me before driving us home in icy silence.
#
I decided to have a good-bye tour for Aunt Elizabeth. Over the next few days, I invited her friends to pay their last respects in person. The visits helped keep a smile on my aunt’s face. She seemed to have found new strength from her guests.
Two days later, she asked, “James, have you figured out how to do it yet? I’d like to die this Sunday.”
I looked out the window staring, thinking and didn’t reply.
She interrupted my thoughts. She said, “I figured it out. We can borrow some extra pain pills when the hospice nurse isn’t looking.”
“What? We can’t do that.”
“Honey, I remembered the nurse mentioning I was on the largest dosage of the pain pills. She said not to take too many. That would bring the end faster than we wanted. I recall she said only five or six of the pills would kill a person. We only have to skip one pill a day to have five saved by the weekend. I already have four stashed.” She reached under her pillow collecting her supply in her hand then slowly moved her clenched fist in my direction. As the hand drew closer, her fist opened showing four pills resting in the palm of her hand.
I turned toward my aunt. I rubbed my center of my forehead with the tips of my fingers. After a deep breath, I said, “Sunday, we’ll do it Sunday morning. I’ll grind up the pills and mix them with your grits. We can pray, watch your television preacher and then you can enjoy your grits.”
“Yes and have Katherine bath me Saturday night,” instructed Aunt Elizabeth. “I have a new nightgown in my dresser. I want to wear it. Make sure you call Brenda and Jennifer from my Bible study class. Brenda can do my hair. Jennifer can do my nails. Did you know they own The Magic Mirror? I use that beauty shop. I must look my best to greet Saint Peter when I arrive at the Pearly Gates. First impressions are important. Have them come Saturday afternoon, say 2 PM and please tell them, I will be forever grateful.”
I had to turn away, look at the floor. I was choking up, about to cry.
Get a hold of yourself. Death is her choice. Looking up from the floor, I said, “I’ll call them. Yes, I knew that was their business.”
“James. I’m ready,” she said. The fear disappeared from her eyes.
I nodded. Nothing more was said. I made the requested arrangements. Saturday went well. Kat asked no questions. She bathed her and changed her into a new gown. Brenda did her hair where she looked like she was ready for the country club black-tie dance. Jennifer manicured and painted her nails.
#
Saturday night I went to bed thinking about Sunday morning’s plans.
“What’s wrong?” asked Kat.
“Nothing,” I lied.
“Aren’t we going to make love?”
I smiled. “Darling, I’m just too tired. Work has me pretty stressed out. Besides, you know I’m on-call. The servers have been finicky, as Andrew has done software patching again. This weekend is the production Linux servers.”
“Well, okay, but don’t let this become a habit,” she said. She kissed my forehead.
My statement about the servers was true. The stress I faced was accepting the fact I would be Aunt Elizabeth’s executioner in but a few hours, and I would be her executioner.
Kat was right; I had never turned down sex before in my life. One of the things I like about Kat was she was one of the few women I ever knew who liked sex as much as I did, but not tonight.
Sleep was hard to come as my thoughts focused on Aunt Elizabeth. Sometimes I saw mother’s face. Around one o’clock, I fell asleep.
At two in the morning, I awoke to a text then a phone call that the production Linux servers didn’t like the new patches Andrew applied tonight. My going into the office would make sure the jobs scheduled for five o’clock A.M. ran on their appointed timetable.
I told Kat what was up and hurried to the data center.
When I returned home just before seven A.M., all was quiet. I thought of my commitment to Aunt Elizabeth. I went into the kitchen and started cooking a big pot of grits. I took the pills and crushed them in a cup. I used the handle of a knife for the pestle and ground them into a fine powder. With care, I stirred the medicine into the pot of grits. I was afraid of not using enough meds to do the job, so I ground up all the pills.
Another text from Andrew came in interrupting my cooking, and my work phone started ringing before I finished reading the message. The data center again required my attention. A Linux Server wasn’t restarting. It hosted the critical database. A reboot of the server failed to correct the issue. If I didn’t get there and get it repaired fast, the weekly Sunday only jobs wouldn’t start on time. Therefore, they would fail to finish running today. There would be the heck to pay Monday morning if the jobs failed to complete. I could see my director’s red face and hear his booming bass voice yelling at me if he had to explain to the VP why the jobs didn’t finish. I physically shook just thinking about the situation.
I turned off the burner heating the grits. I removed the pot from the burner.
“Who called?” asked Kat. She stood in the kitchen door leaning against the door frame.
I filled her in on the impending disaster at work.
“Don’t touch the grits. I’ll take Aunt Elizabeth her breakfast when I return. I promised her I would spend time with her this morning. You could go into the data center with me,” I said with a wink.
“No way am I going to that freezing, noisy place. Besides, I am not going to let that pervert Andrew rape me with his eyes. Good luck. I’m going back to bed,” said Kat.
#
At the data center, the tiny pulsating blue, green, yellow, and red lights greeted me signaling the nonstop activity of one thousand computer servers. Again, the dancing lights had me thinking of our hospital’s biomedical equipment. One hour later, the issue solved, and I arrived back at the duplex. I had averted another potential crisis.
“Kat, I back,” I said as I opened the door to the duplex.
There was no answer.
“Kat?”
I glanced in the bedroom. The bed was empty. Kat wasn’t there. I noticed the stove top. Gone was the pot of grits. I felt sick to my stomach as I made my way next door.
I could hear the TV preacher delivering his sermon as I entered Aunt Elizabeth’s side of the duplex. A faint, distant hissing sound produced a white noise in the background. I saw the pot of grits was sitting on the kitchen counter. My aunt’s face came into view. She had a blank stare with tear stains visible on her cheeks. A bowl with a spoon in it sat on her nightstand.
On the dark mahogany end table, next to the recliner was a second bowl. Kat sat slumped in the recliner, eyes wide open, her countenance showing the shock of her unexpected face-to-face meeting with death’s grim reaper. She looked more mad than peaceful.
“Kat?” I said.
Turning toward me, she stood and screamed, “How could you? How could you?”
“How could I what?”
Two uniformed police officers stepped out of Aunt Elizabeth’s second bedroom. The shorter one said, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.”
I looked at Aunt Elizabeth. I saw tears again streaming down her cheeks.
“James, Kat said the grits smelled funny. I told her why they smelled to keep her from eating them.”
“How could you?” screamed Kat a second time. She reached for me with her hands trying to choke me.
I sidestepped her attack.
“When I told her why,” added Aunt Elizabeth, “she freaked out and called the police.”
“Yes, I did,” said Kat.
“The police said I am unable to make my competent decisions. James, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble,” said Aunt Elizabeth.
I nodded.
The taller police officer said, “Let’s go sir. You are under arrest for attempted murder by poisoning.”
Beep, beep, beep blared the alarm.
“What the?” said the shorter officer.
We all looked toward the kitchen. The sound was coming from that direction.
“It must be the smoke alarm,” said the second officer. “I don’t smell any smoke. I’ll turn it off.”
“It’s in the kitchen,” said Kat.
“Ha.” A sinister, psychotic grin appeared on Aunt Elizabeth’s face as she showed them a Bic® lighter held in her right hand. “You’ll give me my bowl of grits or I’ll flick my Bic®.”
The relentless beeping of the alarm continued.
“My god, that’s not a smoke detector, that’s a natural gas detector,” said the shorter officer. “She’s filled the house with natural gas.”
I saw she had used some of her last strength and opened the old gas jet at the head of her bed.
“Give me my grits, then stand back, or you all join me meeting our maker now!” she screamed.
She held the Bic® out with her thumb primed, ready to ignite the lighter.
“Give me my Grits! You’re too slow!”
#
“Saint Peter, the last thing I remember was seeing Aunt Elizabeth. She flicked her Bic®. Then there was an immediate flash of light, explosion, ball of fire engulfing me, and then suddenly I’m standing in front of you telling my story,” I said.
In chapter eight, “The Settlers”, Spender returns to the rest of the expedition. He carries a gun and shoots six of his crew-mates, saying he is the last Martian. Captain Wilder approaches under a white flag and has a short discussion with Spender during which the archaeologist explains that if he manages to kill off the expedition it may delay human colonization of the planet for a few more years, possibly long enough that the expected nuclear war on Earth will protect Mars from human colonization completely.
Although he opposes Spender’s methods, Captain Wilder somewhat agrees with his attitude towards colonization and wishes for him a humane death. He returns to the others and joins them as they pursue Spender, and Wilder shoots Spender in the chest during the fight before he can be killed by anyone else. The captain later knocks out the teeth of Parkhill, another expedition member, when he disrespectfully damages some Martian glass structures while “target practicing.”
Many of the characters of the Fourth Expedition — Parkhill, Captain Wilder, and Hathaway — re-appear in later stories.
“The Settlers” is the first story that displays a central theme of The Martian Chronicles. It acts as a commentary on the Western frontier of the United States and its colonization, using the colonization of Mars as the analogy.
Like Spender, Bradbury’s message is that some types of colonization are right, and others are wrong. Trying to recreate Earth is viewed as wrong, but an approach that respects the fallen civilization that is being replaced is right.
In the before mentioned version, this short story describes the first settlers coming to Mars, the Lonely Ones, the ones that came to start over on the planet. It first appeared in The Martian Chronicles.
A 1997 edition of the book advances all the dates by 31 years. “The Settlers” date advances from 2001 to 2032.
The genesis of Fahrenheit 451 is in Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles where he has the story of book burning. Published in 1953, Fahrenheit 451 is as relevant today as it was when it first went into print.
Set in an unspecified city, Fahrenheit 451 is set at some unspecified time in the future. “The Fireman” novella, which was expanded to become Fahrenheit 451. The setting was October 2052.
Divided into three parts: “The Hearth and the Salamander”, “The Sieve and the Sand”, and “Burning Bright” it is a book about political correctness. They burn those books that make certain groups feel bad about themselves. The fireman in Bradbury’s book don’t put out fires; they start fires. They search out and burn books. It is a crime, in this society, to own or read books. I would not want to live in this society.
Knowledge is evil. The television walls of their homes are how people receive all of their cultures.
Guy Montag is a fireman who loves his work. He likes nothing better than to spray kerosene on a pile of books, watch the pages curl and turn into flakes of black ash that flutter through the air.
One day he meets Clarisse, a girl who knows about a world of books, thoughts, and ideas. Their conversations precipitate a crisis of faith in Guy. He begins to steal books and hide them in his home.
His wife discovers what he is doing. She becomes terrified. She turns him in. He is forced to burn his beloved collection. Guy flees to avoid being arrested. He joins an outlaw band of scholars who are trying to keep the contents of important books in their heads.
The novel has won multiple awards. In 1954, it won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and the Commonwealth Club of California Gold Medal. It has since won the Prometheus “Hall of Fame” Award in 1984 and a 1954 “Retro” Hugo Award, one of only four Best Novel Retro Hugos ever given, in 2004. Bradbury was honored with a Spoken Word Grammy nomination for his 1976 audiobook version.
John Antal’s “7 Leadership Lessons of the American Revolution: The Founding Fathers, Liberty, and the Struggle for Independence”. The author uses seven case studies to bring the lessons to life. The case studies are in narrative story form. He is an excellent story-teller who paints a clear picture that brings each story alive.The stories make for great illustrations for the lessons learned. The lessons learned are as applicable to the business enterprise as to military leadership. He does a wonderful job of demonstrating liberty as a motivator demonstrating the importance of the person.
While tempted to do to a chapter by chapter summary of the book, I won’t. If you love history. If you love the USA. I you have a sense of patriotism and if you enjoy the study of leadership you will like the book. I strongly recommend “7 Leadership Lessons of the American Revolution: The Founding Fathers, Liberty, and the Struggle for Independence”.
