The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

Our May 2021 book of the month is from 1920-1939: The Pulp Era, Stowaway To Mars by John Wyndham.

An international prize of one billion has been offered to the first man to complete an interplanetary trip, and Dale Curtance, a millionaire adventurer, emerges as the British entrant. With a hand-picked crew, he blasted off from Salisbury Plain in the spaceship Gloria Mundi, destination—the planet Mars. Once free of Earth's atmosphere, they discover a stowaway—a woman. Her extraordinary story helps them prepare for the dangers they encounter on the Red Planet, and the fantastic world that exists there.

I'm in for this one! Love John Wyndham, and have the second in the series, Sleepers Of Mars already :)

I started this a couple of days ago. A lot has happened already in those few chapters. It's fun!

Bionic Jean wrote: "I'm in for this one! Love John Wyndham, and have the second in the series, Sleepers Of Mars already :)"

I read Sleepers of Mars, too! And I read Stowaway in 2005.

I'm halfway; nice calm story until now, they have just reached Mars. The most amazing fact I think is that someone brought a gun aboard a space ship.

Super in! I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything from the pulp era!

This is such a fun read- lots of action and surprises.

This will be my first book by Wyndham. I've heard good things.

I am definitely going to read more of his books, but this will not be my favourite Wyndham. I found the story weak. Just slightly better then The Skylark of Space from the same era we read last year. It is written well though so I had no problem finishing it.

Although I found it tedious in the beginning, I'm now liking it much more than Skylark of Space. It started picking up after we meet the stowaway and learn why they came.

While still implausible, it is much more plausible than Skylark. It is ridiculous that they would blast themselves into space on a trip to Mars without first trying some shorter test flights. (Even Elon Musk runs tests.) But I'll let that pass.

At one point they considered throwing the stowaway out of the ship. I have to wonder whether the ship had an airlock. They had no intention of opening the doors while in space, so would they have built one?

I was surprised they were traveling with no attempt at radio contact with Earth. But that does get explained later. They say they have tried, but been unable to find radio waves that can make it through the Heaviside layer. OK. Makes reasonable sense. I don't know whether anyone had actually figured out a solution by the time this was written, but at least they gave a sensible explanation.

Wyndham seems to be aware of the classic SF that preceded him, and seems to expect the audience to be aware as well. He talks about Frankenstein, The War of the Worlds, A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future, and R.U.R.. He talks about possible evolution of machines, perhaps inspired by Darwin Among The Machines.

There is a strong, interesting female character. But still, treatment of female characters is uneven. I've seen much worse, but there are some cringe-worthy moments.

I'm enjoying it. I am getting pretty tired of the typos in my e-book edition. Seems it was done with optical character recognition and not very much clean-up afterwards.

I've read just about every book by John Wyndham, but I didn't know about this book, so I'm glad the group chose it for the book of the month.
I think my favourite is The Kraken Wakes, but I really enjoyed all of them.

I tried to find some comments from the author himself about this early work, but could not find anything. Of course his fame started after he wrote The Day of the Triffids, and allthough this was written 15 years after Stowaway, many people thought it was Wyndham's debut novel. That is because before WWII he used other writing names.
Here's an interesting article which compares Wyndham to H.G. Wells: https://christopher-priest.co.uk/essa...

Leo wrote: "Here's an interesting article ..."

Thank for sharing that! I have a very high regard for Christopher Priest too :)

John Wyndham's birth name was "John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris", but I have a couple of books by him as John Beynon Harris and John Beynon - also there are some under the pseudonym John B. Harris and Lucas Parkes. Like Rosemarie, (and lots here, I should think) I've read all of John Wyndham's books listed on Goodreads.

Funny, so he used all of his names. But why does one do that?
I read one good reason, that was that he could have two of his short stories published in one magazine.

LOL That would be very canny Leo! I can't see a difference in style with different personas, so maybe you're right.

I've finished. I liked it enough that I may read the "sequel". It is just a short story, not a novel, but still it would be interesting to tie-up the loose end mentioned at the very end of the novel.

By the way.... Currently this site isn't accepting posts with any HTML in them. That includes the HTML that is automatically generated when you hit "reply". If you run into this problem before they fix it, just delete any HTML tags.

Ed wrote: "I've finished. I liked it enough that I may read the "sequel". It is just a short story, not a novel, but still it would be interesting to tie-up the loose end mentioned at the very end of the nove..."

Have they fixed it yet?

Apparently they have.

I started it yesterday, now only 1 chapter in and the language is not what I'm used to in more recent books, even from the 1960s

A few chapters in, and lots of 50's-60's macho posturing. Guess this is the setup, sloggy part. For some odd reason, the vision of the spaceship in my head is like the home-built moon rocket in Wallace & Gromit's "A Grand Day Out." Maybe it's the $5 million prize, as that couldn't buy one the seats today.

Prices sure have changed & they often date stories. It's hard to believe them. According to Google, a $1 in 1935 is equal to about $18.50 now. Even with that as background, they just don't feel right.

About 1940, my neighbor bought an 89 acre farm 10 miles north of the capital, Frankfort, KY, for $3000. About 1965, my uncle was bringing home $75/week. He had 3 young kids & still bought a house on Long Island, NY with that salary. In 1970, my step father bought a brand new pickup for $2000, about what he paid for his riding mower 20 - 25 years later. Maybe that helps a little.

There's a web site that lists some prices & wages of the time here:
https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/pr...

So $5 million in 1935 would be around $90-$95 million today. Not chicken feed for sure, but it still wouldn’t put a dent in the cost to go there.

Allan wrote: "So $5 million in 1935 would be around $90-$95 million today. Not chicken feed for sure, but it still wouldn’t put a dent in the cost to go there."

Agreed & that's a great observation that I hadn't thought about before. They had no conception of how complex a spaceship was back then. They were often built by some guy in his garage or a small, crack team. Can you think of a story that has something like NASA building one before the 1950s or 1960s? I can't offhand, but building ships usually isn't the focus of the story.

I'm pretty sure several of RAHs 1950s stories have big, complex crews building them. "Delilah & The Space Rigger" comes to mind, although that's a space station. In "The Man Who Sold The Moon" from about the same period, the ships were more like early airplanes. Harriman finds one at a local carnival where they're giving rides to people.

Jim wrote: "I'm pretty sure several of RAHs 1950s stories have big, complex crews building them..."

As well as a prof with a bunch of kids as in Rocket Ship Galileo - a good author doesn't allow reality to stay in a way of a good story

Allan wrote: "For some odd reason, the vision of the spaceship in my head is like the home-built moon rocket in Wal..."

LOL I can see that now too Allan! There are definite echoes of H.G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon, with the unspecific and unknown technical aspects. Charles Chilton and Nigel Kneale are also a bit like this.

Jim "Can you think of a story that has something like NASA building one before the 1950s or 1960s?" - No, but I agree that English classic Science fiction does have the idea that eccentrics and small scale entrepreneurs can overcome everything. I suppose it's not "hard SF".

I'm enjoying it :) Though at the beginning I thought this is more like an American gangster story, and you can see his origins! Where is our philosophical John Wyndham? Answer - he hadn't yet seen the light of day!

It is interesting to note how many references this novel makes to other SF works - Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Olaf Stapledon, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley among others

My review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Good review, Oleksandr.
Have you read any more books by Wyndham?

Rosemarie wrote: "Good review, Oleksandr.
Have you read any more books by Wyndham?"

Thanks! I've read a translation of The Day of the Triffids a while ago and watched a movie based on The Midwich Cuckoos (Village of the Damned, 1960)... I planned to reread original English versions sooner or later

Enjoy!

Oleksandr wrote: "It is interesting to note how many references this novel makes to other SF works - Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Olaf Stapledon, [author:Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley|111..."

Yes, I thought that! It feels early, but when I checked the actual date it was published - 1935 - it is about a decade earlier than I thought! I'd forgotten the remit of this era.

Interesting thoughts of robotics and "machines" that will take over the world someday and nice insight of the thinking in that way. But I didn't liked the storytelling. It was a bit sloppy. The book wasn't that interesting for me, until Joan was introduced.
The beginning had to much attempts to create unnecessary drama and the ending fell a bit short on expectations.

It's very patchy isn't it? The middle part just meanders.

Bionic Jean wrote: "It's very patchy isn't it? The middle part just meanders."

Agreed

I just noticed that this book cover from 1987 is pretty accurate about what the book is about: .

That is very often not the case with older SF books.

Ed wrote: "I just noticed that this book cover from 1987 is pretty accurate about what the book is about: .

That is very often not the case with older SF books."
LOL

Finished it today, thought it was pretty weak. It was a philosophy lecture surrounded by a marginal action story. Too much time talking and the action made no sense. Just a jumble that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be.

It fits squarely into the pulp definition, doesn't it?

Here is Jean's review, if you'd like to read it. ⭐⭐⭐

I just popped back, in case anyone's interested, as I've now read the sequel, Sleepers Of Mars by John Wyndham, which I think is rather better and gave ⭐⭐⭐⭐ :)

Jean's review

It's so annoying that this one is not on Kindle, but Stowaway To Mars is!