John Wyndham

Stowaway to Mars

Finally decided to DNF this one. My wife and I pick a book to read before bed every night and we got over halfway through and still felt like there was nothing happening. The prose and dialogue between characters was incredibly dry and the plot was going nowhere exciting. Everything was predictable. Felt like a chore every time we picked it up.

Brandon Eckroth

Dave | Storyphoria

3.75 Stars


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Right off the bat I want to make something clear, a bit of a content warning if you will. This book was written in 1939 and as such is very much a product of its time, particularly in the way the book handles the role of women in society. However, if you stick with this story, you’ll actually find that while there certainly are those moments where the men of this story view the women as being an inferior gender that are only there to look pretty and be a good housewife to their husbands, Wyndham does a pretty solid job of making Joan, the primary female character in this story, a pretty important part of the plot. Arguably the character who has the most important moments and discussions of the entire story. 

This book asks some big questions, most notably centered around the role of machines in our world and with humanity. Are they meant to serve us(humans) or should they be viewed as equals? Are they essentially the next step in human evolution? These questions, and more, are tackled through dialogue driven conversations between the Joan and the crew aboard the Gloria Mundi and later between Joan and “The Martians”. 

If you enjoy classic sci-fi adventures that ask some big questions for us to examine after we finish the book, you’ll find a lot to love here. Just be aware that it IS classic sci-fi and as such it’s a slower paced adventure more focused on the dialogue and conversations than it is on the action and adventure aspects, which can leave you feeling a little bored at times.

Stowaway to Mars

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