I had to read this in high school and I remember really disliking it. But I thought I would give it another go. I actually liked it better than I remembered but I still didn't love it.
David is the main character and he's living in a post apocalyptic world. Their village is extremely religious and anything that is considered deviant is destroyed. That includes crops, animals and people. There is also a fringe area on the outskirts of the town where deviants that have survived live. The book takes place over a number of years as David is starting to question some of the things that his family and their village believe. He also can communicate with a small group of people by telepathy.
It was an interesting book and the second half kept me turning the pages to see what was going to happen. But I still thought it was a very depressing book. I don't think I would read it again.
This episode was reviewed on the Literary Club Podcast episode 58
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1984185 ( )

a great story with some very fascinating points. I thought it got a little preachy at the end (about what is right and wrong and what we should believe) but all in all, it was a great book. ( )

Book 282 - John Wyndham - The Chrysalids

In a post-apocalyptic future, the strict community are scared…paranoid and afraid of the different. If animals are born different they are slaughtered…if crops are odd then they are burned and if children have abnormalities then…they…vanish.

It is a tale of prejudice…racism…and worse. Wyndham doesn’t hold back in the shocking extreme conservatism and the treatment of the different by the elders and clerics of the group. As the teenagers begin to go through puberty, a group of them discover that they are developing telepathic powers….

Wyndham brilliantly ratchets up the tension as they go on the run…with the enforcers close behind the young ones are chasing a dream…an island where those who are different are allowed to live with people of their kind.

It is an outstanding tale that could easily be transposed into the 21st century and the horrors of why we fight..why we hate and why war exists….and perhaps most importantly why wars are allowed to develop and simply why we hate.

Devastating ( )

I was inspired to read this book due to a comment on Facebook to my comment about the Jefferson Airplane album "Crown of Creation." I'm glad I did! Not only is this a fascinating story, but I realize, 56 years later, that I misunderstood the title song! "Crown of Creation" (song) is NOT speaking to me when it says, "You are the crown of creation." It's speaking to the people opposing progress and evolution.

I wish the story had a bit more of an ending. It seems to end so quickly and leaves a number of issues hanging. But has a good message. "Life is change." We are NOT rocks (unchanging). There is a sense of understanding toward opponents in the line "In loyalty to their kind, they cannot tolerate our rise." They have an understandable loyalty -- but it is outdated.

I enjoyed the book!

Important lines from the book that find echoes in the song, "Crown of Creation," by the Jefferson Airplane.

(See: Stuff the Universe into Your Eyes: The Sci-Fi Dreams of Paul Kantner)
https://www.psychedelicwaves.com/single-post/stuff-the-universe-into-your-eyes-t...

p. 153, Fringes Person:
“They [normals] weren’t God’s last word like they thought: God doesn’t have any last word. If He did, He’d be dead. But He isn’t’ dead; and He changes and grows, like everything else that’s alive. . . . He sent along Tribulation to bust it up and remind ‘em that life is change.”
[Sounds like a process theology view of God!]

p. 182, The Z/Sealand Person:
"Let him be, . . . your work is to survive. Neither his kind, nor his kind of thinking will survive long. They are the crown of creation; they are ambition fulfilled – they have nowhere more to go. But life is change, that is how it differs from the rocks, change is it very nature.”

“The living form defies evolution at its peril.”

"The Old People brought down Tribulation, and were broken into fragments by it. . . . They have become history without being aware of it. They are determined still that there is a final form to defend: soon they will attain the stability they stive for, in the only form it is granted – a place among the fossils. . . .”

p. 183, The Z/Sealand Person:
"We have a new world to conquer: they have only a lost cause to lose."

p. 195, The Z/Sealand Person:
"We have to preserve our species against other species that wish to destroy it – or else fail in our trust. . . .

“Sometime there will come a day when we ourselves shall have to give place to a new thing. Very certainly we shall struggle against the inevitable just as these remnants of the Old People do. [But, like the Old People, we shall lose.]

p. 196, The Z/Sealand Person:
"In loyalty to their kind they cannot tolerate our rise; in loyalty to our kind, we cannot tolerate their obstruction."

“The essential quality of life is living; the essential quality of living is change; change is evolution; and we are part of it.”

See my document: "Jefferson Airplane and Science Fiction.docx" in my OneDrive/Documents folder for more information about how Wyndham influenced the Jefferson Airplane's Crown of Creation. ( )

Book 129
John Wyndham
The Crysalids.
"Humans with even minor mutations are considered blasphemies and either killed or sterilized and banished to the Fringes, a lawless and untamed area rife with animal and plant mutations, and suggested to be contaminated with radiation. Arguments occur over the keeping of a tailless cat or the possession of over-sized horses"
Nick Wannan ( )