Beginning on a routine round trip to Mars in 2235; first published in 'Wonder Stories Quarterly' in 1932. The author, born in 1897 at Geelong, Victoria and educated in Melbourne, published his first novel 'Tap Tap Island' in 1921. He took permanent residence in England in 1929, publishing spy sagas and crime thrillers under several pseudonyms. The 'Melbourne Age' described him 'as mild a man as ever cut a throat on paper'.