The Martian Chronicles is a roughly connected collection of short stories written at various times by Ray Bradbury that were about humans going to Mars. They don't really have a coherent story but some of the characters and events cross over and it beats having to read 50 stories separately but is it worth reading them at all?
Where Fahrenheit 451 showed the sci-fi side of Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles shows his poetic side.
In many ways it is more ambitious than 451, indeed many of the themes that Ray had to connect with the thread of storytelling show themselves off beautifully here with short stories exploring colonialism, religion, need of belonging, blowing ourselves to bits (something that doesn't sound as far-fetched considering the events we are all going through) and he creates a wonderful mythology about Mars one that is more fantastical than realistic for sure but feels lived in.
Although even when talking about hardcore science-fiction books this little collection of stories manages to achieve something that I have seen very few stories do right, namely that it shows how weird and magical and utterly incomprehensible that other lifeform (be it Martians or otherwise) can be.
Ultimately this is a book about people and their stories, experiencing it brought out a lot of emotions and I was ultimately left amazed by how well the whole was written.
Highly highly recommended if you're into short stories
This was way back when I started reading for pleasure instead of just for school...I mean, I enjoyed some -but not all of the other earlier books (The Good Earth was great, Of Mice & Men was....ok) and this was also a school assignment but it was just a slog....the we watched the movie (TV mini series?) and that really, really cemented my poor opinion about it. F451 was also...badly/slow paced? For that one all the terrible movie adaptations also kept me from giving it another go.
I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience, I haven't* seen any adaptations for F451 since I heard they're all poorly made
Have you enjoyed any other sci-fi books?
Oh absolutely... everything from Space Trash (Warhammer 40k) to Stephan Baxter (Hard sci fi) ... I'm currently in a Greg Beware kick because his books are just weird ina good way.
I believe the other reasons I didn't enjoy the M. Chronicles was because at that stage I was getting into Stephen King...
I like both King and Bradbury!
But I haven't read anything from those other guys you mentioned, another sci-fi classic I enjoyed was The Time Machine by H.G Wells
There is a 'sequel' to HG Wells War of the Worlds 'the massacre of mankind's by Stephen Baxter. If you read the original, check it out.