Once upon a time there was a boy who could not sleep, who had nightmares night after night and who was scared to death every time he woke up and found himself in the dark without any company. Once upon a time there was a child who imagined a life on Mars, a planet where humans and Martians lived together amid blue mountains, white sand, windy seabeds and two twin moons. Once upon a time Ray Bradbury.
On October 5, Other Martian Chronicles came to light, ten stories about Mars by the famous Ray Bradbury, collected in an anthology by the editor and translator Marcial Souto, illustrated by David de las Heras, whose particular aesthetic provides a peaceful air and another dimension to stories.
By 1950, Bradbury had published numerous stories in various magazines, but, worried about his family finances, he wanted to publish a second book (the first had been Dark Carnival, which he never republished). He traveled to New York hoping to find a publisher for his stories, but he did not arouse much interest: all the publishers wanted a novel. Finally he ran into one, who curiously had the same last name as him, and who suggested that he search among his writings on the colonization of Mars for a common thread that would allow them to be united in such a way that they would read like a novel. That night, Bradbury went to the hotel and spent hours organizing the materials, finding the right order to create a compelling story to present to the editor. He accepted the project, and the preparation process lasted a few months: after reorganizing and rewriting the stories, he finally selected fifteen out of forty stories that appeared on May 6, 1950 in what would later be a great success: Martian Chronicles.
Souto has tried in Other Martian Chronicles to maintain a logic similar to that of Bradbury, trying to build an articulated work. The stories that are now being published together for the first time, after several decades, were discarded at the time by Bradbury because they did not have that necessary connection to work as a novel. However, the editor has considered that "such special stories deserve to be known", although some chronicles have been left out that Souto does not rule out publishing in the future, but now he had to choose taking into account that it is an illustrated edition that requires that the length of the stories is balanced.
Ray Bradbury and Marcial Souto were friends for over forty years. They met when Souto was just starting out in publishing and Bradbury was twice his age. Souto was an advisor to Minotauro Editions, whose first published title, almost fifteen years earlier, had been precisely Martian Chronicles. They maintained a great friendship until the day of his death on June 5, 2012. Souto remembers him “as a man with a great sense of humor, which is reflected in much of what he wrote. He was a creator who relied on the subconscious and emotion, and hardly ever planned. Sometimes, to start writing, he associated words at random until the beginning of a story emerged, which he frantically appropriated until he finished it”, explains Marcial Souto in an interview with La Vanguardia.
Among the ten narratives in this anthology, I would highlight two stories. On the one hand, The Messiah, where there is talk of religious fervor transferred to the red planet. On the other hand, The Adventure, the story of a young Martian who lives in a cave in the mountains, away from the human species until he discovers a woman who captivates him with the mysterious figures she creates with the smoke of her cigarettes with a mouthpiece. .
Other Martian Chronicles sparks the reader's imagination and curiosity, taking him back to the fantastical and memorable territory of the first Chronicles. “It's like going back to a house you liked and you weren't shown all the rooms. There were ten that remained closed and now it's your turn to discover”, Souto concludes.
