The £10 Ticket (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798298020176)

Dave Simons was an ordinary bloke from Sheffield. His biggest worries were whether Morrison's still had pork pies on special, or if Lee - his lifelong mate since school - would ever fix the indicators on his Mk2 Escort. That all changed the night a pop-up ad during a game of Candy Crush convinced him to buy a 10 ticket for NASA's worldwide lottery.

The prize? Ownership of Voyager 1 - humanity's most distant spacecraft - drifting through the dark, silent depths of interstellar space. Dave thought it was a bit of a laugh. NASA thought it was a publicity stunt. The universe had other plans.

When Voyager collides with an alien vessel travelling in the opposite direction at impossible speeds, Dave finds himself at the centre of an intergalactic diplomatic crisis. Swept from TV sofa interviews and internet memes to the chambers of an alien council, Dave must navigate alien legal systems, hypersleep freeze showers, and an ambassador who might just be flirting with him.

As Earth teeters between awe, panic, and a run on tinned beans, Dave's everyman humour and clumsy charm make him an unlikely human representative in the most important first contact since... well, ever. But when an alien gift leaves him with more than just memories of the encounter, Dave's story takes an unexpected turn.

The 10 Ticket is a brilliantly British sci-fi comedy, blending pint-in-hand banter with cosmic-scale adventure. It's proof that history can be made by anyone - even a bloke who once lost a fiver in a hedge.