the illustrated man something wicked this way comes

Clearly Mars had once been more Earthlike than today and maybe even had been an abode for life. The walls in my bedroom were plastered with posters from the Viking mission and I started to thinking about how the Martian landscape had evolved over time and thinking back to when the channels had once been actively cut by water coursing across the surface. The Viking orbiters followed this up with even better and broader resolution images of surface features and the Viking landers revealed a landscape that to me looked somewhat similar to deserts on the Earth, sans vegetation of course.Īlthough these missions did not reveal evidence of the past civilizations I imagined while reading Martian Chronicles, I was hooked nonetheless. As the dust slowly cleared and Mars was unveiled, a diverse landscape was revealed that included not only impact craters, but also giant volcanoes, ice caps, and even ancient water-carved channels. When Mariner 9 arrived at Mars, a global dust storm was largely obscuring the surface from view. Although prior missions had flown by the planet, these missions were the first to go into orbit and, in the case of Viking, successfully land on the surface of Mars. This all happened at about the same time I was eagerly waiting for first the Mariner 9 and then Viking missions to reach Mars. After reading it multiple times, I’d play outside and imagine ancient Martian civilizations living on a drying Red Planet long before humans appeared on the Earth. But it was the Martian Chronicles that really captured my attention. From Fahrenheit 451 to Something Wicked This Way Comes to The Illustrated Man and everything in between. As a child growing up in northern NY, I spent many nights reading and rereading his books. That I am a Martian is thanks in no small part to Ray Bradbury.

The illustrated man something wicked this way comes