The story follows Johnny Smith, who awakens from a coma of nearly five years and, apparently as a result of brain damage, now experiences clairvoyant and precognitive visions triggered by touch.
It tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for the Hugo Award in 1966 and it won the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel.
In the year 2035, the crew of NASA's Ares 3 mission have arrived at Acidalia Planitia for a planned month-long stay on Mars. After only six sols, an intense dust and wind storm threatens to topple their Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), which would trap them on the planet.
Englishman William Asquith "Will" Farnaby deliberately wrecks his boat on the shores of the Kingdom of Pala, an island halfway between Sumatra and the Andaman Islands, thus forcing his entry to this otherwise "forbidden island".
Shortly after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the conclusion of World War II, the United States focused its concern on the Soviet atomic bomb project and the expansion of communism.