* A terrifying story of conformity and deformity in a post-apocalyptic world paralysed by genetic mutation. * 'Brilliant. a top-notch piece of sci-fi' THE OTTAWA CITIZEN. * The ideas of the Chrysalids are echoed in Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE, and Atwood has acknowledged Wyndham as an influence. * '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 BOSTON GLOBE. David Strorm lives in a community where the chances of breeding true are less than fifty per cent and where the slightest deviation is considered blasphemy and destroyed. David can communicate with a small group of friends by means of 'thought shapes' and at first this deviation from a cruelly rigid norm goes unnoticed. But sooner or later the secret is bound to be uncovered and the results are violent, horrific.

and believable. ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was born in the West Midlands in July 1903. He became Britain best-selling science fiction author as 'John Wyndham' in the 1950s with THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS ('An immortal story' ARTHUR C. CLARKE; 'One of those books that haunts you for the rest of your life' THE SUNDAY TIMES) and six more highly successful novels would follow, including THE KRAKEN WAKES ('Ingenious, horrifying & well told' THE GUARDIAN), THE CHRYSALIDS ('Will be well noted and long remembered' THE NEW YORK TIMES), and THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS in 1957 ('Exiting, unsettling & technically brilliant' THE SPECTATOR). He died in 1969.