Mars Is Heaven!

Lore & Background

The plot is set in 1960, when the third exploratory spaceship from Earth lands on Mars. The crew discovers a small rural town eerily similar to those from their childhoods, inhabited by people who believe it is 1926. Crew members find old friends and deceased relatives, and those ordered to guard the rocket abandon their posts to join the reunions. The ship's captain remains skeptical and realizes the situation may be a telepathic alien contrivance to lower the Earthmen's guards. Before he can warn the others, he and the crew are killed by aliens masquerading as their family members.

Reader's Guide

"Mars Is Heaven!" has been adapted into numerous media, including radio dramas for Escape (June 2, 1950), Dimension X (July 7, 1950 & January 7, 1951), Think (1953), X Minus One (May 8, 1955), and Future Tense (July 1976). It was adapted as an EC comic in Weird Science #18 (March–April 1953) by Al Feldstein and Wally Wood, and as an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater (July 20, 1990) starring Hal Linden and Paul Gross. A Bengali translation titled "Mongoli Shawrgo" was made by Satyajit Ray with Bradbury's permission, appearing in the book Braziler Kalo Bagh O Onanyo. The story was also dramatized as the Second Expedition to Mars in the 1980 TV miniseries adaptation of The Martian Chronicles. Critic Algis Budrys described the story as "Beautifully written, poetically effective, excellently designed," but noted "There is no fulfillment here ... this stuff simply evokes the empty stuff of nightmares."

Did You Know?

• The story was originally published in 1948 in Planet Stories.
• It was adapted as a radio drama for Escape, Dimension X, Think, X Minus One, and Future Tense.