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Cargando... Stowaway to Mars (1935)por John Wyndham
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. 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. 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. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
Pertenece a las series editorialesAtomböckerna (1955)
A space opera set on Mars by one of the twentieth century's most brilliant--and neglected--science fiction and horror writers, whom Stephen King called "the best writer of science fiction that England has ever produced." What if alien life-forms included autonomous, conscious machines? An international prize is offered to the first man to complete an interplanetary journey. For British pilot Dale Curtance, it is the ultimate challenge; he must build a ship, assemble a top-notch crew, and beat the Russians and the Americans, too. Soon the Gloria Mundi heads for Mars. There's only one problem: a stowaway named Joan Shirning. At first, the men resent Joan's presence. But they come to realize that she is the only one who has firsthand knowledge of the Martians--or at least the intelligent beings that will one day replace them. . . . No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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