It had some interesting philosophical ideas bout the relationship between humans and machines. ( )

Mars has canals, the men have hunting rifles and the women faint. Only the machines sound interesting, and they in the end are pointless. And no, I'm not trying to be funny...

I know it was written in the 30's. It has a handful of plot devices that could really take the book places, and I bet in it's time a lot of those ideas were fresh and innovative. I could live with the canals, but there's only two characters that aren't complete cardboard cut outs and even they wander from stereotype to stereotype from start to finish. The rest of it just doesn't go anywhere interesting.

Feel free to skip this one. ( )

Readable but has not stood the test of time as well as his later works. ( )

I'm not a big Wyndham fan. I try his books but never keep them. Oddly his early works are my favorites. This one was pretty good. Sure, its dated but it shows much inventiveness. For 1935 it was a good imagined story about space travel and Mars. ( )

I love John Wyndham's science fiction. I have been a fan since my college days when I read The Chrysalids (in an effort to read all the books I was supposed to read in High School).

Wyndham first published this work with the title, Planet Plane in 1936 under the pen name John Beynon. It was later published as a serial novel under the names The Space Machine and Stowaway to Mars. Stowaway is one of his first works, and it shows. The plot lacks the drive and balance of his later efforts.

The story centres around one person's drive to be the first to reach Mars and return. Of course, there is a stowaway—a woman named Joan.

It's interesting to see how Wyndham handled gender issues. On the one hand, Joan is portrayed as a tough woman who is determined to break free of preassigned roles (in contrast to the protagonists's earthbound and pregnant wife). Her iconoclastic role is undermined, however, as the story continues.

The philosophic role of machines and technology in society is the most interesting part of the book. The protagonist is enamored with his machines and the accolades they have won him. His wife, on the other hand, is threatened by them. Martian society has fully accepted and allowed machinery to flourish. Joan, in a conversation with the Martian Vaygan questions his acceptance of them:

"'The Machines?' Joan repeated. 'What are the Machines? They are the puzzle which brought me here.' She told him of the machine which had somehow reached Earth. 'I felt nervous of it,' she owned, 'and I felt nervous of your machines last night. I think that is the first reaction of all of us to our own machines. Some never get beyond it, others get used to it, but when we think of machines we feel that in spite of all they have given us and all they do for us there is something malignant about them. Their very presence forces us down ways we do not want to go'" (149).

Joan continues to question the Martian's apparent subservience to their machines. Vaygan later admits:

"'In a sense the machine must rule from the moment it is put to work. One surrenders to its higher efficiency—that is why it was made'" (168).

These thoughts anticipate the work of Jacques Ellul!

Stowaway is not one of Wyndham's great stories, but it's still a thought-provoking read. ( )