John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris Boeken

Een Britse geleerde ontdekt samen met een medewerkster dat een bepaald soort korstmos de opmerkelijke eigenschap heeft de menselijke levensduur aanzienlijk te verlengen. Beiden zetten onafhankelijk hun onderzoek naar dit serum van de 'eeuwige jeugd' voort. De man is van mening dat de ontdekking geheim moet blijven, uit vrees voor een strijd om het zeldzame mos. De vrouw daarentegen vreest dat de regering het serum zal in beslag nemen en vernietigen vanwege de enorme maatschappelijke veranderingen die het gebruik met zich meebrengt. In de uitwerking van deze tegengestelde redeneringen toont Wyndham zijn beste werk; het verhaal blijft geloofwaardig ondanks de controverses. Wanneer de ontdekking uiteindelijk bekend wordt, ondervinden de hoofdpersonen de moeilijkheden die daarmee gepaard gaan: aanvankelijk gelooft niemand in de kwaliteiten van het product, en ze lopen het risico gearresteerd te worden voor oplichting en verstoring van de openbare orde. Zodra de publieke opinie omslaat, leidt dit tot enorme maatschappelijke en politieke chaos. Met deze roman biedt Wyndham een verhaal dat zowel de echte SF-lezer als degenen die normaal geen SF lezen, in ademloze spanning houdt.

A millionaire English lord dreams of founding a Utopian community on a remote Pacific island. Among the forty-odd men and women selected for the project are a pestologist named Camilla and the narrator. Within hours of the group's arrival on the sunny isle their radio has been destroyed. Within days several members of the group are dead. Dream turns to nightmare as they discover the island is overrun by a species programmed to resist and dominate any invader.

The Earth was holding a fantastic contest... An international prize of over a million dollars was being offered to the first man to complete an interplanetary journey. Target -- Mars. It was a race against time. The U.S., Russia, and England were again competitors, fighting for fame an fortune. Dale Curance of England didn't need the fortune. He was a millionaire. He was an eccentric. But most of all he was an adventurer and he was determined to win. But winning was not going to be that easy. There were going to be many surprises. And they all began with the stowaway aboard Curtance's ship. A stowaway to Mars. A woman.

The Outward Urge is a sf novel by John Wyndham which is a collection of linked short stories, originally published in four issues of the magazine "New Worlds Science Fiction" . The collection was originally published with those four chapters in 1959. A 5th chapter was included in later versions. It was originally published in the November 1960 issue of New Wolds as a separate short story, 'The Emptiness of Space'. The stated authorship has a peculiar history. It was published as cowritten by John Wyndham & Lucas Parkes, but they were different pen-names for the same writer. He had used the pen-name Lucas Parkes earlier in his career. Unlike most of his novels, The Outward Urge was closer to typical hard sf & his publishers decided they wanted to use the Wyndham & Parkes byline because it was "not your usual Wyndham style". It's future history set from 1994 to 2194. With chapters at 50-year intervals, it tells the story of the exploration of space, with space stations in Earth orbit, then moon bases, landings on Mars in 2094, Venus in 2144, & the asteroids. This is told thru Troon family members who play an important part in the exploration of space, since they all feel "the outward urge", the desire to travel further into space. They all "hear the thin gnat-voices cry, star to faint star across the sky"--a quote from The Jolly Company by Rupert Brooke. In 1994 "Ticker" Troon is killed foiling a Soviet missile attack on a British space station, & is later awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. In 2044 a major nuclear war between the USSR & the West wipes out most of the Northern Hemisphere, leaving Brazil as the main world power, which then claims that "Space is a province of Brazil". However Australia eventually emerges as a serious rival.