The Chrysalids (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beyn Harris
- First Published: 1955
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—post-holocaust
- Time of Work: 4000-5000
- Setting: Waknuk, Labrador, Canada
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction, Apocalyptic and catastrophe fiction
- Subjects: Children, Extrasensory perception or powers, Future, Canada or Canadians, Mutations or mutants
- Locales: Canada
The Plot
The Chrysalids was published in Great Britain under that title and in the United States as Re-Birth. The novel takes place after Tribulation, a cataclysmic event (probably a nuclear holocaust that devastated the world thousands of years earlier) attributed to God’s anger in the tradition of Eden and the Flood. The agrarian folk, technologically backward and beset by fear and prejudice, obey a strict interpretation of the Old Testament, eradicating all crop and animal mutations. Stern commandments and proclamations hang on their walls, telling them that...
[The entire page is 1021 words long]
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