The Outward Urge is a science fiction novel by John Wyndham (although it might arguably be regarded as a collection of linked short stories

Short Stories

Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...

). It was originally published with four chapters in 1959. A fifth chapter was included in later versions, which was originally published in 1961 as a separate short story The Emptiness of Space.

The novel's stated authorship has a peculiar history. It was published as co-written by John Wyndham and 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 conventional hard science fiction

Hard science fiction

Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science...

 and his publishers decided that they wanted to use the Wyndham and Parkes byline because it was "not your usual Wyndham style".

Plot summary

It is a future history

Future history

A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors in the subgenre of speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction...

, set from 1994 to 2194. It tells the story, with chapters at 50-year intervals, of the exploration of the solar system

Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

, with space station

Space station

A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...

s in Earth orbit, then moon bases, and landings on Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

 in 2094, Venus

Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...

 in 2144, and the asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

s. This is told through the Troon family, several members of which 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

Rupert Brooke

Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier...

.

In 1994 "Ticker" Troon is killed foiling a Soviet missile attack on a British space station, and is later awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross

Victoria Cross

The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....

.

In 2044 a major nuclear war

Nuclear warfare

Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...

 between the USSR and the West wipes out most of the Northern Hemisphere

Northern Hemisphere

The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...

. Inhabitants of the Southern Hemisphere - virtually the only survivors of humanity - call it "The Great Northern War", the far earlier war of the same name

Great Northern War

The Great Northern War was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in northern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I the Great of Russia, Frederick IV of...

 seeming very minor in comparison. Only after hundreds of years, with radioactivity going down, do expeditions from the south start carefully exploring and preparing to re-colonise the ravaged northern hemisphere.

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 is left as the main world power, which then claims that "Space is a province of Brazil". However Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 eventually emerges as a serious rival. Consequently, English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

 become contenders for the position of the major world-wide (eventually, Solar System wide) language.

Eventually, space explorers break away from the tutelage of both earthbound powers and establish themselves as a major third power, called simply "Space"; the Troon Family plays a major role in this as in many other events.

Major themes

Like many science fiction works of the period, this one became superseded by later developments after it was written. In this account, the first space stations in Earth orbit are built in the 1990s, and the first moon landings take place in the 2020s. Mars is correctly described as a desert planet with no Martians, but there are plant forms in the bottom of the canali (which are implied to be a natural phenomenon). Venus is a watery planet with some primitive life forms, the most advanced of which are "fish trying to become amphibians".

Also a curious feature for someone reading it at the start of the 21st century, is that Wyndham assumes that by the early-to-mid 21st century little will have changed politically since the 1950s (another fairly common assumption in the science fiction of the time). The USSR still exists, capable of fighting a major nuclear war with the West. Britain is trying to keep up with the USA and USSR as a superpower, lagging slightly behind, but is their only rival worth mentioning. White minority rule still exists in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, although most of the whites are massacred in an uprising in 2045, and around 2120 there is a second rising which forces out the Indians.

Military conflict in space plays an important part in three of the five chapters, first between the Soviet Union and the West, and later between Brazil and Australia.

Reception

In his review column for F&SF, Damon Knight

Damon Knight

Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...

selected the novel as one of the 10 best genre novels of 1959.