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.

Contents:

• Ray Bradbury, a Biographical Sketch by William F. Nolan
• Rocket Summer
• Ylla [“I’ll Not Look for Wine”]
• The Summer Night [“The Spring Night”]
• The Earth Men
• The Taxpayer
• The Third Expedition [“Mars Is Heaven!”]
• And the Moon Be Still as Bright
• The Settlers
• The Green Morning
• The Locusts
• Night Meeting
• The Shore
• The Fire Balloons [“‘In This Sign...’”]
• Interim
• The Musicians
• The Wilderness
• Way in the Middle of the Air
• The Naming of Names
• Usher II [“Carnival of Madness”]
• The Old Ones
• The Martian [“Impossible”]
• The Luggage Store
• The Off Season
• The Watchers
• The Silent Towns
• The Long Years
• There Will Come Soft Rains
• The Million-Year Picnic
• Bibliography by William F. Nolan