I’m teaching The Martian Chronicles again, something I haven’t done for almost a decade. I think the last time I taught a science fiction novel of any kind was 2014 or 2015 when I read Fahrenheit 451 with an Honors American Lit class (you can see my affinity for Bradbury).

Of course, the first comment I received from the students this year was, “This is WEIRD,” and yes, kids, it’s weird. It’s SCIENCE FICTION. I would think that in 2023, in America, in which we are ruled by the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and in which new Star Wars and Star Trek shows spring up like daisies), a science fiction novel wouldn’t weird these students out.

But it has. We are about a third of the way through, and while they are starting to groove to Bradbury’s particular brand of magic stardust, they are still a little befuddled and bewildered by the strangeness of things. I mean, it IS a strange book, but that’s part of the fun! Science fiction’s strangeness is part of its charm, part of why I like to read it.

As I keep reminding the students, science fiction is a genre of ideas. It’s all about the Metaphors (as Bradbury liked to call them). About the Big Questions. About life and death and God and the meaning of time and the power of memories and the ways in which our imagination can wield incredible, life-altering power. It’s about the eternal stuff, the primordial stuff. The point and purpose of life.

And things have to get a little weird if we want to get to these big ideas. When we ride on Bradbury’s rocket ship, we have to be ready for wonders. After all, life and death and God are all pretty strange things. Think about them for a moment and wonder: Why did life even begin? Why did the universe become the universe? Why must things die, why not infinite growth, infinite life, etc.? Why did God make all this (if you believe in God and his creative spirit)? And if there is no God, why not? What is the meaning of things without him?

And even the more practical questions: Why do we hope to find life on other planets? Why do we want to go to other planets? What will happen if we ever meet an alien species? How will we save our own planet from the destruction we’ve wrought against it? Can it be saved? What will we do to the other planets in our solar system? What will we do to ourselves in pursuit of these things?

What is happiness? What is love? What is memory? What is time?

To play in these fields of wonder, Bradbury must write with fire and rocket fuel. I am loving the experience of rereading the novel, and I’m also enjoying how my students are reacting to it. Despite all the science fiction television and movies around them, this almost-seventy-year-old book is still knocking them around, still peeling back the layers of metaphor and thought to reveal hard questions underneath.