Stowaway to Mars

An early novel from a classic science fiction author, showing the brilliant visionary talent that later produced The Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos.

An international money prize is being offered to the first man to complete an interplanetary journey, and famous aircraft designer Dale Currance volunteers as the British entrant. With a hand-picked crew, he blasts off from Salisbury Plain in his own spaceship, GLORIA MUNDI, destination: Mars. Butonce free of the Earth's atmosphere, he discovers that he has a stowawayon board - a woman, Joan. And it is only Joan who realises that they mighthave an important lesson to learn from the Martian race . . .

John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris was born in 1903, the son of a barrister. He tried a number of careers including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, and started writing short stories, intended for sale, in 1925. From 1930 to 1939 he wrote short stories of various kinds under different names, almost exclusively for American publications, while also writing detective novels. During the war he was in the Civil Service and then the Army. In 1946 he went back to writing stories for publication in the USA and decided to try a modified form of science fiction, a form he called 'logicalfantasy'. As John Wyndham he wrote The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of theDamned), The Seeds of Time, Trouble with Lichen, The Outward Urge,Consider Her Ways and Others, Web and Chocky. John Wyndham died in March 1969.