Chrysalids

John Wyndham (1903-69) John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was the son of a barrister, who started writing short stories in 1925. During the war he was in the civil service and then the army. In 1946 he went back to writing stories for publication in the USA and decided to try a modified form of science fiction, which he called 'logical fantasy'. As John Wyndham, he is best-known as the author of The Day of the Triffids, but he wrote many other successful novels including The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned).

One of the most thoughtful post-apocalypse novels ever written. Wyndham was a true English visionary, a William Blake with a science doctorateA remarkably tender story of a post-nuclear childhood . . . It has, of course, always seemed a classic to most of its three generations of readers . . . It has become part of a canon of good books - GuardianJohn Wyndham's The Chrysalids anticipates and surpasses many of today's dystopian thrillers . . . The Chrysalids explores intolerance and bigotry with satisfying complexity as it races toward an ending that is truly unpredictable - Seattle TimesIt is quite simply a page-turner, maintaining suspense to the very end and vividly conjuring the circumstances of a crippled and menacing world, and of the fear and sense of betrayal that pervade it. The ending, a salvation of an extremely dubious sort, leaves the reader pondering how truly ephemeral our version of civilization is . . . - Boston Globe