The Martian Chronicles - "Man, I wished there were more about the Martians! ... but I guess that's the point?"

  "Wow, this is a whole lot less cool" I remember thinking as I started reading into the central chapters. I had really enjoyed reading about the Martian's culture, special abilities, and their environment. Plus it was pretty entertaining to watch the Martians intentionally and unintentionally foil the first few missions. The fact that what killed the Martians was chicken pox made the colonization of Mars pretty unearned and anti-climactic for the Americans. The beginning of the book seemed more like a fantasy adventure story and I guess after that the story was a little too close to home. In my opinion, Ray Bradbury did this specifically to juxtapose the two civilizations and show how one of them *cough cough* maybe didn't belong there.
   Not to say that the portion of the chronicle where the humans had colonized wasn't interesting; it was just a little humbling to see that even if we did change planets we would probably bring all of the stuff that made earth unlivable in the first place with us anyways. That was the point of  Spender's last hurrah, he knew that even if the first few colonists were harmless, eventually capital interests or violent interests would further destroy the memory of a civilization already ruined by disease.
  Something else interesting is how little the humans actually adapt to the new planet. There was an attempt to start planting earth seeds in martian soil to try to fix the oxygen problem; however, it was pretty poetic how the attempt seemed to be a magnificent success only to be completely ruined by the harsh martian sun and showing how unwelcome the humans were. Although the martians and the humans seem very similar and mars was almost habitable to humans, it's obvious that the humans were being carless when deciding that mars would be a good place to settle down.
  When the alien and the colonist meet in a road and literally cannot exist in the same reality, it really emphasizes the point of thier alien-ness to each other. Allthough they share similar desires, they cannot co-habitate, the whole "there can only be one" (courtesy of Highlander) argument is really strong here and eventually proves it's self to be true by the end of the book.

Why are metropolises so common in science fiction?

  What I find so interesting about science fiction is how the genre both congratulates and criticizes in equal parts. The attitude of the "looking forward" experiment seems to depend on whether the author accepts or fears technilogical advances at that particular time as is. In my opinion the attitude seems to be cyclical; when we are on the brink of new promising innovation the genral attitude seems to be positive, but when the technology is new and generally not well understood people are more weary and fears can inflate towards the ridiculous. This is what the archetype of the metropolis shows us.

  Metropolises are always giant hubs of activity set in the future and they are designed in nouveau styles of the time such as art deco or post modernism. They usually have a technological "wow" factor such as hoverboards or flying cars. The main idea that distinguishes between metropolises like Hill Valley in 2015 (Back to the Future II) or the original Metropolis is its connotation. In Back to the Future II the quality of life in 2015 in decidedly better than in 1985 (Although Marty's particular situation might not be that great). The once sleepy town is now bursting with fun activities, cool technologies, and interesting outfits, without any obvious detriment due to these installments of the future. However in the latter example technology is perverted in a way that is harmful to people; lusty robots, man eating machines that demand hours of rudimentary tasks, or an infustructure that is so weak that it completley falls apart at the slightest bit of incohesiveness.

  Another few societies that are popular in science fiction are the utopia and the dystopia. Instead of using an obscene amount of technology as a main trope to deliver an opproving or disapproving message. Sometimes the society is on subtly more futuristic technologically, but instead has more social differences. The social differences are usually exagerrated traits that the author wishes to focus on. For instance, in A Clockwork Orange, the only tech that is focused on is the hyper sexualized "bar maid" robots that serve drugs and the new methods for operant conditioning. The main focus in this dystopian London is the "ultra violence" perfomed by the main character Alex and "The Droogs", and other groups around the city. The city has turned into a terrible place to live; full of rape, burglary, and violence. The final message is a political one; the sociopathic Alex is allowed to live without psychological treatment on the one condition that he supports and participates in the main political party. On the other hand, Utopia by Thomas Moore focuses more on the socio-political details of a perfect and benevolent society. The main character Raphael, frusturated by the cruelty and poverty of Europe, leaves for the island where everyone shares thier goods and housing and no one has to fear one another. Freedom is described as an absence of private property and privacy. ( Yes, there are slaves, but this was written in 16th century England, so probably not that progressive in our terms)

  What I find the most interesting in this sub-genre of science fiction is how dystopian/ evil metropolis stories are so much more common now a days. With popular novels like The Hunger Games , The Handmaid's Tale, or Uglies popping up all over the place in the last 30 years, it would be interesting to study the reason behind this sudden popularity in the genre. Although, the genre really started to gain traction about 70 - 80 years ago, perhaps brought upon by the recent World Wars or the expansion of the Communist bloc, it's pretty interesting how in the last 10 years especially there has been a giant resurgence of faction like dystopias (often with female leads, which is a cool progression in science fiction.)

If you don't like strong women in your sci-fi......lol.