Lost in Space Zachary Smith – an agent for an unnamed foreign government – who slips aboard the spaceship and reprograms the robot to destroy the ship and crew. However, Smith is trapped aboard, and his excess weight alters the craft's flight path and places it directly in the path of a massive meteor storm. Smith manages to save himself by prematurely reviving the crew from suspended animation. The ship survives, but the damage caused by Smith's earlier sabotage of the robot leaves the crew lost in space. The "Jupiter 2" crash-lands on an alien world, later identified by Will as Priplanus, where
What Was Lost Was Lost" was the winner in the first novel category of the Costa Book Awards. O'Flynn received a £5,000 prize. It was short-listed for the overall Costa Book of the Year Award. The Costa Book Awards' judging panel, chaired by Joanna Trollope, praised the novel for "blending humour and pathos in a cleverly constructed and absorbing mystery." They described the novel as inventive, compelling, and poignant. "What Was Lost" was long-listed for the 2007 Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. It was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. It won the Jelf Group First Novel Award