Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles

One of the most poignant sf stories of all time, Bradbury's classic anthology of loosely connected vignettes paints a picture of humanity that may take to the skies but remains mired in terrestrial flaws. Earth invaders of the red planet and the (also flawed) Martians kill and deceive one another—and themselves—until cataclysms on both planets set the stage for a hoped-for new beginning. This skillful adaptation includes 15 of the vignettes, about half the originals, that together preserve the texture and momentum of the original. The text also maintains much of Bradbury's poetic diction. Calero's mostly realistic colors integrate smoothly with the story and are well designed. However, the more stylish, beautiful approach occasionally in evidence, as in the city depicted in "Night Meeting," would have better suited additional parts of the text to convey Bradbury's aura of doomed romanticism.