"The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury

Very mixed feelings from me for this classic sci-fi short story collection. It spans a few decades and chronicles humanity's exploration and colonization of Mars through a variety of viewpoints. It's a tale about humans being miserable creatures and destroying their environments, something I usually love to read about (I like to stare into the abyss, what can I say). I know this was originally published in 1950, and it must have been an impressive and very critical book for that time. But to me, it aged somewhat poorly. With all these decades passing, it reads more like a silly Star Trek episode than serious sci-fi. My main annoyance was the portrayal of women. There were barely any, and the few that appeared on page were in domestic settings and vapid. Maybe you could argue that this was deliberate: sexism being so present in the novel drives home the point of people being a sad species (especially since there was also a story about a white racist treating black people like…