The Chrysalids

The Chyrsalidsis set in the future after a devastating global nuclear war. David, the young hero of the novel, lives in a tight-knit community of religious and genetic fundamentalists, always on the alert for any deviation from the norm of God's creation. Abnormal plants are publicly burned, with much singing of hymns. Abnormal humans (who are not really human) are also condemned to destructionunless they succeed in fleeing to the Fringes, that Wild Country where, as the authorities say, nothing is reliable and the devil does his work. David grows up ringed by admonitions: KEEP PURE THE STOCK OF THE LORD; WATCH THOU FOR THE MUTANT. At first he does not question. Then, however, he realizes that the he too is out of the ordinary, in possession of a power that could doom him to death or introduce h im to a new, hitherto unimagined world of freedom. The Chrysalidsis a perfectly conceived and constructed work form the classic era o science fiction, a Voltairean philosophical tale that has as much resonance in our own day, when religious and scientific dogmatism are both on the march, as when it was written during the cold war.

John Wyndham (1903—1969) was the pen name used by the British science-fiction writer John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris. He began writing for money in 1925, mostly for American periodicals. After working as a government official and corporal operator in the army during World War II, he began writing science-fiction novels. His many works include The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken, The Midwich Cuckoos, Trouble with Lichen, Chocky, and Web.