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"Mars is Heaven!" is a short story by Ray Bradbury, about astronaughts from Earth who are stunned to find an Earth-like town on Mars. The story was first published in the Fall, 1948 issue of Planet Stories.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Plot

An Earth rocketship lands on Mars, where the crew is astonished to find a small, American town, inhabited by pleasant people, many of whom are known personally to the crew. The entire crew comes out of the ship to visit with friends and relatives, only some of them still wondering how all this is possible. They spend the night as guests in various houses. Lying awake that night, the captain of the ship thinks up an explanation none of them had thought of before—that all of this is a ruse to catch the crew off guard, and kill them in their sleep. The captain does not get far with his theory; that night, the entire crew are killed in their sleep, and the next day the townspeople destroy the rocketship.

Reprints

This story has been reprinted in, among other places, Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 10 (1948).

This story also makes up one of the chapters in Bradbury's classic The Martian Chronicles.