Visions of Mars

The digitized copy of The Martian Chronicles, along with many other stories, novels, and science fiction art inspired by the Red Planet, finally reached Mars aboard the Phoenix lander in 2008. Chapter 43 describes Bradbury’s final trip to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory the following year, the publication of his last story collection, We’ll Always Have Paris (2008), and the passing of Don Congdon, his agent for more than sixty years. Bradbury had come to measure each story he finished as one more victory over death, but the stories were coming more slowly now. Bradbury’s reflections on mortality during the final decades of his life, and his unfinished plans for a final story collection, close out chapter 43.