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1-Page Summary of The Martian Chronicles
A woman from Mars dreams about a rocket coming down to her planet and containing Nathaniel York, a light-skinned man with blue eyes. Her husband is weary of the idea and shoots the astronauts when they land. Meanwhile, people all over Mars start humming Earth tunes and having strange dreams. When a second rocket lands on Mars, more astronauts come out and explore their surroundings. They say they are from Earth but everyone thinks these men have hallucinated their trip to Mars because no one believes them that there’s life outside of Earth. The Martians shoot all of the explorers because they think it’s crazy that these men believe in aliens living on other planets (and not just humans). Thus, Captain John Black is shot by his brother who tries to board the third spaceship back home to earth after getting denied access initially. On earth, an angry taxpayer tries boarding another ship for mars but gets turned away due to lack of space. Later, he realizes this was probably all part of Martian plan as he finds himself in an ideal small American town where he meets his long lost relatives including his parents, brothers etc.. He goes into bed next night with one such “brother” only to realize it might be a trap set up by Martians.. His “brother” kills him before he can escape room.
A year later, another expedition lands on Mars. The crew encounters the remains of a previous group that had landed there and died while trying to make it back home. One member of the current crew is an archaeologist who feels humbled by what he sees as a great Martian civilization. He tries to keep his fellow explorers from drinking or celebrating, but they don’t listen to him and eventually kill him for being so annoying about it.
People are moving to Mars because of the promise of work. Benjamin Driscoll’s job is to plant trees, and one day he sees that the barren landscape has been covered with green. Toma’s Gomez also experiences a strange event when, in the middle of nowhere, he runs into a Martian—they cannot touch each other but seem to exist on different time-planes.
When the first settlers arrived on Mars, they built churches in little shantytowns. Sometimes, their children would sneak off to Martian ruins where many carcasses were still being cleaned up. They played songs on the bones of those dead creatures and had fun with each other. Meanwhile, all the Negroes in America’s South banded together to emigrate to Mars. As they walked through one city during an exit parade, a racist white man named Mr. Teece tried to stop them from leaving but failed because they banded together and paid all debts that he owed them. The racist man wept as he felt lost without his former slaves around him anymore.
A man named William Stendahl believes that the government has made stories of fantasy illegal. He invites politicians responsible for this to a party, where they are killed.
One day, a man shows up on the porch of an elderly couple who have lost their son. They believe he is their son but realize that they are mistaken when many people start fighting over him in town.
News comes from Earth that atomic war is imminent. A man named Sam Parkhill has just opened a hot dog stand and is proud of it. Suddenly, Martians approach him to talk about something else, but he kills them instead. Later on, the Martians hand over their deeds for half of Mars to him as a reward for killing them. He doesn’t understand why they’re doing this until later that night when he sees Earth burst into flame due to an atomic explosion in the sky. All over Mars people watch what’s happening and listen as radio signals come through with words saying “Come home”. Everyone evacuates except one man who lives by himself in the mountains named Walter Gripp who searches desperately for a woman to keep him company but when he finds Genevieve Selsor she disgusts him because she isn’t clean enough or good-looking enough for his taste so he leaves her behind
