The Martian Chronicles

by Ray Bradbury

The Martian Chronicles: Techniques


Bradbury was for years science fiction's premier literary stylist and, although his heavy use of adjectives and metaphors can seem cloying today, he remains one of the most sophisticated users of language in the genre. He is particularly fond of similes such as the one which opens "Rocket Summer," "housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets," or, more startling, his description of spaceships landing on Mars in "The Locusts": "the rockets came like drums, beating in the night. The rockets came like locusts, swarming and settling in blooms of rosy...

(The entire page is 191 words.)

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