Plot Summary of Ray Bradbury's Sci-Fi Novel The Martian Chronicles

The book starts with a women dreaming of an odd, 6’1, blue eyed, blonde haired person coming down from the skies in a rocket. She believes it is just a dream, until her husband says he is going out hunting, and when she hears the rocket come down from the sky, she hears two shots, the husband killing the 2 man crew. On a summer night, all the martians telepathically sing a song from an unknown language, that the martians believe “just came into their heads.” Then, soon after a second rocket lands on mars, and the men go out and explore They say they are from Earth, but everyone thinks they are crazy people who have hallucinated their rocket. Thus, they are all shot by a martian psychologist.

When the third rocket lands on mars, the men arrive to a small town with things from earth, when they’re there they see all of their dead relatives, and trust them, but that night they are all murdered in their sleep. When the fourth rocket lands they find the martian civilizations in ruins, and realize they all died of chickenpox given to them by past rockets, and the men celebrate, rambunctiously. One of the men, Jeff Spender goes off alone, to research the civilization, which he is amazed by. When he comes back, he shoots a lot of the crew members, before retreating back to the martian civilization, he is then caught and shot by the rest of the crew.

New settlers migrate to mars, and one of the men decides he wants to plant thousands of trees, as he was inspired by Johnny Appleseed. After no success, the morning after the first rain, the man turns to see all of the trees fully grown. Another unusual event happens when Toma’s Gomez runs into a martian who cannot touch, and realize they must be existing on different planes of time.

The next settlers build their towns small, with only hundreds of people living in them. Next all of the African Americans in the American south migrate, while one of them is stopped by a racist man named Mr. Teece, all of the people pitch in, to help him pay off his debts, and move to mars a totally free man. After they leave, Mr. Teece feels lost, and breaks down crying. On mars, the government has made works of fantasy illegal, and one man, William Stendahl recreates the House of Usher from Edgar Allan Poe's works. He then invites all of the governors who did this and murdered them.

Eventually flocks of Elderly people come to mars, and one of them misses their deceased son, Tom. One night tom mysteriously appears at their doorstep, but when they take him into town they realize he is a Martian who switches forms to the person, who the person viewing him most desires. Everyone flocks around him, until he is forced to take to many forms, and melts, into a pile of wax.

The atomic war on earth is worsening. A man from the fourth expedition, Sam Parkhill opened up “the first and only hot dog stand on mars,” a martian then comes to the stand, when Sam is scared, he shoots him. He is then pursued by martians, and when he is caught, Sam expects he will die, but then he is mysteriously given the rights to half of mars. Sam is shocked, but soon after earth catches fire, and they are radioed to “COME HOME.” Nearly everyone evacuates, except for Walter Gripp, who is yearning for somebody to love, when he meets the only woman left, he finds her repulsive, and runs away.

Twenty years pass, with a man named Hathaway, also from the fourth expeditiom living with his family in a shack on Mars, waiting for a rescue. Finally, a rocket lands. It is Captain Wilder, back from exploring Jupiter and Pluto. He doesn't understand why Hathaway's family has not aged, and as Hathaway suddenly dies of a heart attack, he realizes that they are robots.

Back on Earth, a fully automated house is dying. Its occupants died long ago, in the nuclear war, but the house kept washing and playing music every day. A falling tree bough catches it on fire. On Mars, a family has escaped the wasteland of Earth. Dad tells his sons that they are Martians now. Soon another family will arrive, with girls. Dad is happy to have left the foolishness of Earth.