Rocket Summer:

This chapter describes the heat wave that settles after the first rocket takes off.  An impossible phenomenon, it creates an image of something intrinsically wrong, something that is out of season and uncharacteristic, implying that the colonization of another planet is simply wrong.

Ylla: 

Mrs. Ylla K dreams of a man unlike any she knows.  The man is a human named Nathaniel York who speaks to her in a strange, beautiful language that she doesn't know yet understands.  She speaks of her dreams to her husband, Mr. K, who becomes increasingly jealous as the dreams continue.  One night, he leaves to go "hunting" and Mrs. K hears two shots ring out.  When Mr. K returns, she inquires of him about the shots and he dismisses her questions.  The dreams stop after this night.  It is assumed that Mr. K has shot the men of the First Expedition. 

The Earth Men:

The Second Expedition arrives on Mars highly ignored.  They travel to the house of Mr. Xxx after being passed on by Mr. Ttt and Mr. Aaa.  The Martians think that the captain, Williams, is insane and is telepathically creating his three companions.  The Americans spend the night in an insane asylum and then take Mr. Xxx to their rocket.  He believes that it is also telepathically created by Williams and congratulates him on his ability and the extent of his insanity before shooting him.  When the other three men and the rocket fail to disappear after the death of Williams, Mr. Xxx proceeds by shooting each of the men.  Still they do not disappear and he thinks that he is now contaminated by Williams and is insane.  Mr. Xxx shoots himself, as that is the only cure to this level of insanity.  The townspeople find them at sunset, and not knowing what the rocket is, sell it as scrap metal to a junkman. 

The Third Expedition:

Seventeen men left Earth for Mars, one died en route.  When the sixteen men arrived, they found a town like any Earth town.  The houses were built in the style popular in the early 1900's, the yards quaint, and the people familiar.  In fact, the men found family and friends that had passed away long ago there.  Too late, they discover that these loved ones are actually Martians, and are all killed.

And the Moon be Still as Bright:

This short story reflects on the Fourth Expedition and the problems it faced.  They arrived on a different, dead side of Mars near the ruins of a beautiful but abandoned Martian city.  The men in this expedition had different views on how to handle the situation.  Most wanted to celebrate, to party and get drunk as reward for their long journey and successfully being the "first" men on Mars.  One man, Spender, wants to quietly reflect on the journey and the Martians that created this amazing city.  He finds himself at odds with one of the men in particular (Parkhill), gets in a fight with him, and then wanders off into the deserted city.  He is gone for a week, returning only to kill his former companions in an attempt to keep Mars from being colonized.  After shooting five of the men, Spender leaves the camp and is tracked by the survivors.  Eventually he is shot by the Captain. 

The Green Morning: 

Benjamin Driscoll found the thin air to be too much for him on Mars.  In fact, he fainted when he got of the rocket he arrived in.  The Co-ordinator was going to send him back, and he had to stay, had to figure out a way.  Driscoll was going to be the Johnny Appleseed of Mars, he told the Co-ordinator, if he could get seeds.  Reluctantly, the Co-ordinator agreed and now here he was, in the middle of nowhere with his seeds and some food, waiting for the rains to come.  He woke one night to a tap on his brow.  Rain!  It rained for two hours and Driscoll played in the rain in the middle of the night.  When it stopped, he changed into dry clothes and went back to sleep.  He awoke to a green morning; his work had paid off.  The direction he had come from was filled with trees, not sprouts or saplings, but real trees, hundreds of them.  He couldn't believe it.  One could see the oxygen blowing from the green trees. 

Night Meeting:

Tomas Gomez was on the way to a party.  He had been working in one of the new colonies for ten days straight and now he had two days off.  He stopped at a gas station before going into the blue hills.  Continuing on, he drove for an hour without seeing another vehicle.  Tomas pulled into a little dead Martian town and stopped the engine.  He poured himself a cup of coffee, letting the silence settle in around him.  A sound startled him, and he turned to see a jade-green insect rushing through the cold air.  A golden-eyed Martian looked down at Tomas from the machine.  Tomas smiled and thought "Hello!"  Each was surprised by the other, unknown being.  Tomas offered the Martian a cup of coffee, and the Martian accepted.  He started to hand the Martian the cup, but it fell through his hand.  Surprised, they moved to shake hands, but passed through each other.  The Martian describes the dead city to Tomas as he sees it, all its beauty, and full of people, carnival lights.  However, Tomas only sees the deserted, dead city.  Tomas tells him of the party he's going to in Green City, but the direction the city is in is covered by the ocean the Martian sees.  They discuss who is wrong, and it is suggested that one is from the past and the other the future.  They cannot agree on who is correct or what is correct.  They bid each other their farewells after agreeing to disagree and went their separate ways.

The Musicians:

Only the Americans were coming to Mars.  They were coming and creating towns like the ones on Earth.  Women were coming now, too, and children.  The children would hike far out into the Martian county carrying their lunches and with strict orders not to play in the deserted Martian towns where the dead still lay.  The Martians had been stricken with Chicken Pox, brought by the first expedition.  The Chicken Pox had a stronger effect on the Martians, it killed them, turned their bodies black.  The children would run through the houses and kick up the black flakes, all that remained except the bones.  They played hard, for they had to hurry.  The firemen were coming to clean the towns, to separate the terrible from the normal. 

Way in the Middle of the Air:

Bradbury has created a strange America.  An America with the technology to build rockets, yet still using horse-and-buggy to get around.  An America where blacks are barely out of slavery, still unable to read or write, answering "Yes, Ma'am," or "No, Sir."  And somehow, able to organize and build rockets in secret, able to walk out of this life and into another on the same day.  That is exactly what is happening in this chapter.  Samuel Teece, a hardware store owner, tries to stop the blacks from leaving.  He even tries to force them to stay, to work off a debt or to fulfill a contract.  They left anyway, left the shacks they were living in and flew off to Mars.

Usher II:

William Stendahl came to Mars to get away.  He, along with many others, wanted to escape from what America had become, what with its censorship, its Clean-Minded People.  He had hired a contractor to build him a house just like the one in Edgar Allen Poe's story and finally it was done.  Stendahl had owned a library long ago on Earth.  He lost his books in the Big Fire, back in 1975, when they were gobbled up by censorship.  But by now, even Mars was full of the same people as Earth.  Stendahl knew that it wouldn't be long until the Moral Climates people showed up at his door, ready to tear down his dismal, dark house.  Stendahl had inherited twenty-five million dollars back on Earth, and he had used it to build this place, to come here, to meet the right people, powerful people, and destroy them.  He had a party planned that night for his "friends," the people who had destroyed the books and ended fantasy.  In the house of Usher II, they would all die at the hands of robots created in their image by the master of deception, Pike.  At the end, when the demolition crews drew near, Usher II would destroy itself as Stendahl and Pike looked on from their rocket headed back into space. 

The Martian:

Lafe and Anna LaFarge had a son named Tom who had died long ago as a child.  He was buried back on Earth and the LaFarge's had since moved to Mars.  Lafe missed the weekly visits to the boy's grave, and he missed his son.  One night, it starts to rain.  Lafe hears something outside and goes to check.  He sees a figure outside, and thinks its Tom.  Lafe invites him in, but he won't come so he leaves the door unlocked for him.  Later the old man hears someone come in and he is happy.  The next morning, Tom is in the kitchen, washing his face.  Although unexplainable, the older LaFarge's accept the boy's return.  However, it isn’t really Tom, it is a Martian that assumes the shape of someone missing or dead depending on who is near him.  Later that night, they decide to go to town, even though Tom pleads with them not to.  Tom is "caught" by someone else's desire to be reunited with a lost loved one and disappears.  Lafe sends Anna to wait by the boat and goes looking for the boy.  He finds out that a missing girl had returned that night, and he sought her out.  Speaking to the girl, he causes "Tom" to resurface and the two start to run back to the boat.  The Martian, as Tom, is caught by several people as he runs by and they are trapped by the canal before they can leave.  All the different forces pulling on the Martian kills him and all are left disappointed and alone.

The Luggage Store:

This segment addresses the idea of the big war on Earth and what the humans on Mars will do.  Will they stay?  Or will they return?  It is thought, correctly, that everyone will go back to Earth when the war starts.

The Off Season:

Sam Parkhill had been on the Fourth Expedition.  He had been the one to get in a fight with Spender.  Now he was back.  Parkhill and his wife had set up a small hot dog stand at the corner of two abandoned highways.  They had just completed the preparations to open when a Martian came down from the hills and tried to speak to them.  Sam was frightened of the Martian and killed it.  A little later, more Martians, maybe 150 of them, start moving across the dried up ocean in their sand ships.  Sam thinks they are coming to harm him for killing the Martian earlier.  He forces his wife to flee, but are finally caught by the Martians.  The leader tells him that they do not want to harm him, and that they have a message for him.  They tell him to prepare for something, which is the start of the big war on Earth, but he doesn't understand.  Sam thinks numerous rockets from Earth are coming, ten thousand in all, and starts to ready his stand to serve all the new people.  The Martians leave, later that night Sam and his wife watch the sky, waiting for the rockets.  What they see is Earth burning as the first bombs are dispatched.  Others saw the light-radio signal in the sky, sending out Morse code messages, calling the people home. 

The Silent Towns:

The people went home in droves.  The last rocket left, and there were maybe three people left behind.  One of those was Walter Gripp.  Walter lived up in the blue Martian hills, and came to town once a week.  This week, the town was empty.  At first, it was fun, and then it was lonely.  One day, he heard a phone ringing and he ran through town trying to find it.  Finally, he grabbed the receiver but he was too late.  He found a phone book and tried some numbers until he realized that it must be a woman calling.  He called some beauty salons and found her.  Excited, he jumped in a car and sped off to where she was.  When he arrived, the lady, Genevieve, was not to be found.  Realizing that she had driven to where he was, he headed back and found her there.  She was a rather large woman and after spending the day together, Walter decided that if his choice were this woman or being alone, he'd take being alone.  He jumped in his car and drove away. 

The Long Years:

There was a man named Hathaway who was also left behind.  He and his family had been up in the mountains doing research when the last rocket left.  His family had died not long after, but being a scientist, and very lonely, he created robots in their image.  They lived this way for twenty years and Hathaway was getting very old.  One day, he looked up to the sky and saw a rocket headed their way.  When the rocket landed, an old friend of Hathaway's stepped off.  It was Captain Wilder from the Fourth Expedition.  Shortly after their arrival, Hathaway died of a heart attack.  Captain Wilder and his crew returned to Earth.

There will Come Soft Rains:

This brief story with no living humans in it tells of the destruction of the war.  All that is left is this one house, the silhouettes of the family the only part of the house not blackened out by the big bomb.  The house is highly mechanized and carries on even though the people are no longer there.  A bit of spilled solvent causes a fire, and the house is destroyed.  The war has won; it has finally destroyed everything.

The Million-Year Picnic: 

This last story was actually the first written of The Martian Chronicles.  It tells of a family from Earth that has fled during the final hours.  They have arrived on Mars and are waiting for the arrival of another family that escaped.  During the story, the father has to explain the situation to his young sons about the complete destruction of Earth.  He knows they cannot understand, but helps them accept this news and start a new life on Mars.