"Mars Is Heaven!" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ray Bradbury, originally published in 1948 in '' Planet Stories''. "Mars Is Heaven!" was among the stories selected in 1970 by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the best science fiction short stories published before the creation of the

Nebula Award The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a nonprofit association of profe ...

s. As such, it was published in ''

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929–1964 ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

''. It also appears as the sixth chapter of '' The Martian Chronicles'', revised as "The Third Expedition."

Plot summary

It is 1986 and the third exploratory spaceship from Earth is landing on Mars. The crew is shocked to discover a Rockwellian small town, eerily similar to those they left on Earth. The strangely familiar people in the town believe it is 1926. Crew members soon discover old friends and deceased relatives in the town. Those who had been ordered to stay behind and guard the rocket abandon their posts in order to join the reunions and festivities. Members of the crew split up to spend the night in the homes of their lost comrades and relatives. The ship's captain remains skeptical, and realizes in the middle of the night that the entire situation may have been contrived by telepathic aliens to lower the Earthmen's guards. Before he can warn the others or reestablish a guard on the spaceship, he is proved right as he and the rest of the crew are killed by aliens masquerading as their family members.

Adaptations in other media

"Mars Is Heaven!" was adapted as a radio drama for numerous anthology series including ''

Escape Escape or Escaping may refer to: Computing * Escape character, in computing and telecommunication, a character which signifies that what follows takes an alternative interpretation ** Escape sequence, a series of characters used to trigger some so ...

'' (June 2, 1950), '' Dimension X'' (July 7, 1950 & January 7, 1951), ''Think'' (1953), '' X Minus One'' (May 8, 1955) and ''

Future Tense In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meaning ...

'' (July 1976). It was also adapted to the EC comic book ''

Weird Science Weird Science is the name of: * ''Weird Science'' (film), a 1985 film directed by John Hughes ** ''Weird Science'' (TV series), a television series based on the film ** "Weird Science" (song), the theme song to the film and the TV series by Oing ...

'' #18 (March–April 1953) by Al Feldstein and Wally Wood. It was also adapted as an episode of '' The Ray Bradbury Theater'' (July 20, 1990) starring Hal Linden and Paul Gross. It was also translated into

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Satyajit Ray Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. One of the greatest auteurs of fil ...

, a friend of Bradbury's, with permission from the author. This version can be found in the book Braziler Kalo Bagh O Onanyo (The Brazilian Cat & Others). It was also dramatized as the Second Expedition to Mars in the 1980 TV

mini-series A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format h ...

adaptation of Bradbury's science fiction anthology " The Martian Chronicles."

Reception

Algis Budrys said that the story was "Beautifully written, poetically effective, excellently designed", but "There is no fulfillment here ... this stuff simply evokes the empty stuff of nightmares".

References

External links

*
"Mars is Heaven!"
at the Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Mars Is Heaven! Short stories by Ray Bradbury 1948 short stories Short stories set on Mars Science fiction short stories Works originally published in Planet Stories Extraterrestrial life in popular culture Fiction books about telepathy Fiction set in 1960