Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by bookwomble
The Silver Locusts by Ray Bradbury
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Stories, mainly melancholy, about US white colonialism in the guise of interplanetary settlement.
Written in the shadow of WWII and the atomic bombings of Japan, Bradbury gives a pessimistic view of the human capacity for self-destruction, genocide, ignorance and bigotry couched in beautifully lyrical prose that captures the sadness of decay and decline, grief for the passing and the passed, and a scintilla of hope for the survival of something decent in the infinite unfolding of time.
Despite this being a 5⭐ for me, there are flaws that time has exposed: a white male, US-centric perspective, some cultural and racial stereotypes, and in one story, a (untypically) mean-spirited, sexist, fatphobic attitude which at the time written passed for humour (The Silent Towns). There's a slew of racial slurs in Way in the Middle of the Air, but in the mouth of a racist small-town business owner and Ray's sympathies are definitely with the Black people escaping racist oppression for the new New World.
My UK edition contains one of the more darkly humorous stories, Usher II, not in The Martian Chronicles collection. It's widely anthologised and worth seeking out. It lampoons the moral panic and ideological censorship of the McCarthy era, and spears Trumpian oppression just as effectively, with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe.
Tonally, Nico's lament, You Forget to Answer from her album The End...captures something of the overarching spirit of the stories for me.
Written in the shadow of WWII and the atomic bombings of Japan, Bradbury gives a pessimistic view of the human capacity for self-destruction, genocide, ignorance and bigotry couched in beautifully lyrical prose that captures the sadness of decay and decline, grief for the passing and the passed, and a scintilla of hope for the survival of something decent in the infinite unfolding of time.
Despite this being a 5⭐ for me, there are flaws that time has exposed: a white male, US-centric perspective, some cultural and racial stereotypes, and in one story, a (untypically) mean-spirited, sexist, fatphobic attitude which at the time written passed for humour (The Silent Towns). There's a slew of racial slurs in Way in the Middle of the Air, but in the mouth of a racist small-town business owner and Ray's sympathies are definitely with the Black people escaping racist oppression for the new New World.
My UK edition contains one of the more darkly humorous stories, Usher II, not in The Martian Chronicles collection. It's widely anthologised and worth seeking out. It lampoons the moral panic and ideological censorship of the McCarthy era, and spears Trumpian oppression just as effectively, with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe.
Tonally, Nico's lament, You Forget to Answer from her album The End...captures something of the overarching spirit of the stories for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia, Misogyny, Racial slurs
Moderate: Mental illness