{"product_id":"the-chrysalids-isbn-9781590172926","title":"The Chrysalids","description":"\u003cb\u003eTHE COLD WAR SCI-FI CLASSIC: Following a global nuclear war, a telepathic young boy searches for freedom in a fundamentalist society.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“One of the most thoughtful post-apocalypse novels ever written.” —David Mitchell, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e–bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eCloud Atlas\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Chrysalids\u003c\/i\u003e is set in the future after a devastating global nuclear war. David lives in a tight-knit community of religious and genetic fundamentalists, who exist in a state of constant alert for any deviation from what they perceive as the norm of God’s creation—deviations broadly classified as “offenses” and “blasphemies.” Offenses consist of plants and animals that are in any way unusual, and these are publicly burned to the accompaniment of the singing of hymns. Blasphemies are human beings—ones who show any sign of abnormality, however trivial. They are banished from human society, cast out to live in the wild country where, as the authorities say, nothing is reliable, and the devil does his work. David grows up surrounded by admonitions: KEEP PURE THE STOCK OF THE LORD; WATCH THOU FOR THE MUTANT.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt first, he hardly questions them, though he is shocked when his sternly pious father and rigidly compliant mother force his aunt to forsake her baby. It is a while before he realizes that he too is out of the ordinary, in possession of a power that could doom him to death or introduce him to a new, hitherto-unimagined world of freedom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Chrysalids\u003c\/i\u003e is a perfectly conceived and constructed work from the classic era of science fiction. It is a Voltairean philosophical tale that has as much resonance in our own day, when genetic and religious fundamentalism are both on the march, as when it was written during the Cold War.“John Wyndham’s \u003ci\u003eThe Chrysalids\u003c\/i\u003e anticipates and surpasses many of today’s dystopian thrillers . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Chrysalids\u003c\/i\u003e explores intolerance and bigotry with satisfying complexity as it races toward an ending that is truly unpredictable.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“One of the most thoughtful post-apocalypse novels ever written. Wyndham was a true English visionary, a William Blake with a science doctorate.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—David Mitchell\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“A 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.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It 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 . . . ”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Wyndham]  was responsible for a series of eerily terrifying tales of destroyed civilisations;  created several of the twentieth century's most imaginative monsters; and wrote a  handful of novels that are rightly regarded as modern classics.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/i\u003e (London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Science fiction always tells you more about the present than the future. John Wyndham's  classroom favourite might be set in some desolate landscape still to come, but it  is rooted in the concerns of the mid-1950s. Published in 1955, it's a novel driven  by the twin anxieties of the cold war and the atomic bomb . . . Fifty years on, when our  enemy has changed and our fear of nuclear catastrophe has subsided, his analysis  of our tribal instinct is as pertinent as ever.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e (London)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Sometimes you just need a bit of soft-core sci-fi, and Wyndham’s 1950’s classic, newly back in print, fully delivers.”\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Thicket Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A]bsolutely  and completely brilliant . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Chrysalids\u003c\/i\u003e is a top-notch piece of sci-fi that should  be enjoyed for generations yet to come.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Ottawa Citizen\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“John Wyndham's novel . . . is a famous example of 1950s Cold War science fiction, but its portrait  of a community driven to authoritarian madness by its overwhelming fear of difference—in this case, of genetic mutations in the aftermath of nuclear war—finds its  echoes in every society.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Scotsman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Chrysalids\u003c\/i\u003e comes heart-wrenchingly  close to being John Wyndham's most powerful and profound work.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—SFReview.net\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Wyndham\u003c\/b\u003e is the pen name of John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (1903–1969), the son of an English barrister. The boy’s parents separated when he was eight, and after attending various boarding schools, he lived off family money while trying his hand—unsuccessfully—at careers such as law, commercial illustration, and advertising. In 1924 he turned to writing, and within a number of years he was selling short stories, mostly science fiction, to pulp magazines in America, as John Beynon or John Beynon Harris. During World War II, he served behind the lines in the British army, and in 1951 he published \u003ci\u003eThe Day of the Triffids\u003c\/i\u003e, his first novel as John Wyndham, and a tremendous success. John Wyndham’s six other novels include \u003ci\u003eThe Kraken Wakes\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Midwich Cuckoos\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eChristopher Priest\u003c\/b\u003e has published eleven novels, three short-story collections, and a number of other books, including critical works, biographies, novelizations, and children’s nonfiction. In 1996 Priest won the World Fantasy Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel \u003ci\u003eThe Prestige\u003c\/i\u003e. His most recent novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Separation\u003c\/i\u003e, won both the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304050381029,"sku":"NP9781590172926","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590172926.jpg?v=1767738687","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-chrysalids-isbn-9781590172926","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}