地球濒临毁灭，人们带着最古老的恐惧和发自内心最深处的渴望，移民火星，寻求一个全新的开始。人类征服了火星——同时，火星也征服了人类。这个拥有古老而濒临绝种的种族的红色星球，似乎对他下了魔咒，永远地改变了他。懂得“心电感应”和“移形换影”之术的火星人；爱上地球人的火星寂寞人妻和她善妒的丈夫；历尽艰辛安全降落却被关进了精神病院的火箭舰长；密谋以爱伦•坡小说中的恐怖场景实施报复的腹黑绅士……陌生的红色土地上，人类带来的喧嚣，最终能否复归平静？火星能否成为人类的另一个家园？

虚幻而又栩栩如生的火星纪事，从一九九九年绵延至二〇二六年，如诗般缥缈婉约，却又颇具爱伦•坡之风，此书中，布拉德伯里更以《厄舍古屋的续篇》，向爱伦•坡致敬。这是一个旧死与新生的故事，一个近乎绝望却又充满希望的梦想。布拉德伯里对人性的看法是悲观的，但他不痛诉，只是在恬静中把故事忠实地记录下来，反思人类对待异己的残酷、想象力的匮乏，所造成的不同文化族群间的隔膜与相残。本书的一个重要关注点，是外来者（“入侵者”）和“原住民”之间的冲突，这也是在人口流动和文化交流愈加频繁的今天，社会上一直讨论和关注的话题。美丽绮梦和残酷现实相互交织，糅合成一种难以言喻的美感，超脱了类型科幻所能表现的视界。

《火星纪事》是布拉德伯里的成名作，奠定了他在科幻小说界的地位。2012年美国航天局将“好奇”号在火星的着陆点命名为“布拉德伯里着陆点”。《火星纪事》曾在1980被NBC拍成过科幻剧，主演是明星罗克•赫德森。1997年时，制片人John Davis和大导演斯皮尔伯格也曾想让环球公司来改编拍摄该书。2011年派拉蒙公司买下了《火星纪事》的改编权，准备将其搬上大银幕。

斯皮尔伯格:“布拉德伯里是我科幻事业的缪斯。在科学小说和幻想的世界里他将永生。”

史蒂芬•金:“我今天听到的声音，是一位巨人的脚步渐行渐远时所发出的雷鸣轰响。”

作者简介

雷•布拉德伯里（1920-2012）

Ray Bradbury

生于美国伊利诺伊州的沃基甘。自一九四三年开始专业写作，创作了数百篇短篇小说，出版近五十本书，此外还写了大量的诗歌、随笔、歌剧、戏剧、电视和电影剧本。作为举世公认的科幻大师，布拉德伯里的小说被超过1000所美国公、私立学校选为教材或推荐读物。他曾获世界奇幻文学协会终生成就奖、美国科幻小说作家协会大师奖等众多奖项。

在好莱坞星光大道上有属于他的一颗星，太空中有以他名字命名的小行星。知名导演斯皮尔伯格、惊悚小说大师斯蒂芬•金等人都是他的忠实读者，美国现任总统奥巴马在布拉德伯里去世次日盛赞这位大师，认为“他的叙事才华重塑了我们的文化，拓展了我们的世界”，并且他的影响将鼓舞未来几代人。他还曾入围奥斯卡最佳动画短片剧本奖，并曾获艾美奖的最佳广播剧剧本奖。美国“阿波罗号”航天员登陆月球后，甚至将月球上的火山口命名为“蒲公英火山口”，向布拉德伯里的小说《蒲公英酒》致敬。

布拉德伯里的作品行文优美，被誉为“科幻诗人”。他擅长爱伦•坡式的笔法优美、想象瑰丽的奇幻物语，其作品不仅在科幻界，而且在文学界也引起了很大的反响，同时受到广大读者的钟爱，被视为“将现代科幻领入主流文学领域的最重要人物”。

反乌托邦小说《华氏451》以及短篇小说集《火星纪事》、《图案人》是他最为著名的作品，他被誉为二十世纪最重要的美国作家之一。

本书译者林翰昌系台湾科幻界的代表人物，英国利物浦大学科幻研究硕士，台大电机系Maxwell BBS站的科幻版版主。其质与量均佳的“猫昌科幻书介“在网络上极富盛名。

With Earth on the brink of destruction, people, armed with their oldest fears and deepest desires, emigrate to Mars in search of a fresh start. Man has conquered Mars - and Mars has conquered man. The Red Planet, home to an ancient and endangered race, seems to have cast a spell on him, changing him forever. Martians who know the art of "telepathy" and "transfiguration"; A lonely Martian wife in love with an Earthling and her jealous husband; The rocket captain who landed safely but was locked up in a mental hospital; A black-bellied gentleman plotting revenge on the horrors of POE's novels... On the strange red land, can the noise brought by humans finally return to calm? Could Mars be another home for humanity?

Bradbury pays homage to POE in "The Next Chapter of the House of Usher", a surreal and lifelike chronicle of Mars that stretches from 1999 to 2026, poetic and ethereal but also very POE. This is a story of old death and new life, a dream that is close to despair but full of hope. Bradbury's view of human nature is pessimistic, but he does not complain, just in the quiet to faithfully record the story, reflecting on the cruelty of human beings to foreigners, the lack of imagination, caused by the separation and conflict between different cultural groups. An important focus of the book is the conflict between outsiders (" invaders ") and "natives", which is a topic of discussion and concern in today's society with increasing population mobility and cultural exchange. Beautiful dreams and cruel reality are intertwined, blending into an indescribable beauty that transcends the horizon of genre science fiction.

The Martian Chronicle was Bradbury's seminal work and established him in the world of science fiction. In 2012, NASA named Curiosity's landing site on Mars the Bradbury landing Site. The Martian Chronicle was made into a science fiction series for NBC in 1980, starring star Rock Hudson. In 1997, producer John Davis and director Steven Spielberg tried to get Universal to adapt the book. In 2011 Paramount bought the adaptation rights to The Martian Chronicle for the big screen.

Steven Spielberg: "Bradbury was the Muse of my science fiction career. In the world of science fiction and fantasy he will live forever."

Stephen King: "The sound I hear today is the thunder of a giant's footsteps as they fade away."

About the author

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

Ray Bradbury

Born in Waukee, Illinois. Writing professionally since 1943, he has written hundreds of short stories and published nearly fifty books, in addition to numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, television and film scripts. Recognized worldwide as a master of science fiction, Bradbury's novels are taught or recommended in more than 1,000 American public and private schools. He has received the World Fantasy Association Lifetime Achievement Award and the Science Fiction Writers Association of America Master Award, among many other awards.

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and an asteroid in space named after him. The current US President Barack Obama praised Bradbury the day after his death, saying that "his storytelling genius reshaped our culture and expanded our world" and that his influence would inspire generations to come. He was also a finalist for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay for an Animated Short Film and won an Emmy Award for Best Screenplay for a Radio Drama. After the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon, they even named the crater on the moon "Dandelion Crater" in homage to Bradbury's novel "Dandelion Wine."

Bradbury's works are beautifully written, and he is known as the "science fiction poet". He is good at writing beautiful and imaginative fantasy stories in the style of Allan POE, and his works have caused great repercussions not only in the science fiction world, but also in the literary world, and is loved by the majority of readers, and is regarded as "the most important person who brought modern science fiction into the mainstream literature field."

Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and his short story collections The Martian Chronicle and The Pattern Man, he has been hailed as one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.

The translator of this book is Lin Hanchang, a representative of Taiwan science fiction, a master of science fiction studies from the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, and a science fiction edition moderator of Maxwell BBS website of the Electrical Department of Taiwan University. The quality and quantity of its "Cat Chang science fiction book" is very famous on the Internet.