The Arcadian Incident

Book 1 in the Mars Alone Trilogy

It's 2312 and Leo Fischer is a fifteen-year-old computer whizz on his first ever journey off Earth. He's heading to the moon colony to help his mother Lillian with her scientific work. But before he can reach her, she is kidnapped.

Determined to find and rescue her, Leo has no choice but to accept the help of his newest friend, Skater Monroe, the daughter of a shuttle pilot and already an experienced space traveller. Their investigation leads them to an old freighter captain with a strange story about two spaceships: one a long-lost piece of junk called the Arcadian; the other, a sleek, ultra-modern ship of mysterious origin. Both craft are involved in some kind of cover-up, and Leo and Skater become convinced the conspirators are the same people who kidnapped Leo's mother.

Dodging space pirates as well as a ruthless assassin in the pay of the soon-to-be president of Mars, they stumble upon a secret that could lead to all-out war in the solar system.

The first instalment of Andrew Stickland's Mars Alone Trilogy is a gravity-defying thrill-ride into the human race's all-too-believable future in space.

‘Combines rocket-fuelled storytelling with an Isaac Asimov-level enquiry into what it means to be human. Highly recommended’ Amanda Craig, New Statesman

'Part space-adventure, part coming-of-age story, The Arcadian Incident takes readers into a vividly imagined future 300 years from now. With quicksilver prose and a pacy plot, the story pulls you into the worlds of Leo and Skater and keeps you reading and guessing until the very last page. And if you fall for these characters, like I did, you can rejoice that the next two volumes of The Mars Alone Trilogy are soon to come!' Melissa Fu, author, Peach Blossom Spring

'Brilliantly pacy, imaginative, high-stakes sci-fi adventure set on Mars - a must-read for all YA thriller fans' Emma Haughton, author, The Dark

'Escape to Midas is a beautifully paced, unputdownable story. More than just an adventure in space, it's a technologically believable picture of the solar system four centuries from now, riddled with personal and political threats which resonate with our present. Stickland's world-building rings true down to every grain of Martian dust, and the story ends on a breathtaking cliffhanger. Reassure me that there will be a third instalment!' Victoria Whitworth, author, Swimming with Seals

'The Mars Alone Trilogy continues at pace. Epic, thrilling, with such glorious world-building and magnetic characters, I couldn't put it down' Fran Harris

'An immersive adventure that transports the reader to space - and to new worlds that we can only imagine, but our descendants may well even experience. If you like science fiction with strong characterisation and a political edge, this is for you' Katharine Quarmby, author, No Place to Call Home

Andrew Stickland is a prize-winning poet and short-story writer whose work has variously been published by the British Fantasy Society, Games Workshop, the Royal Statistical Society and The Economist. He studied law at University College London, then creative writing at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland. He lives in Cambridge.

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