Chrysalis

The novel takes place in the distant post-apocalyptic future, on Labrador , which after a nuclear war became a warmer and more suitable place for people. The inhabitants of Labrador did not completely restore civilization after the war, the local society is mainly agrarian and practices fundamental Christianity , according to which the extermination war was the punishment of humanity for its sins. There are no more centers of developed civilization in the environs of Labrador, in the south of the peninsula endless Jungles begin, from which farmers are sometimes raided by savage mutants . Among Labradorians, under the influence of residual radiation , mutants (having a Deviation) are also born, but they are sterilized and expelled for religious reasons, since according to the post-war treatise of “Revelation” there is only one definition of a real person.

In such an intolerant society, in the village of Vaknuk, David Storm was born and raised, the son of Joseph Storm, fanatical and orthodox, even by local standards of the farmer. In early childhood, he began to dream of the City, although he did not know then that there were cities at all and what they looked like. For the friendship with mutant girl Sophie, Wander was severely punished by her father, which was one of the turning points in the development of David's character. After that, he learns “a part of the family history that you would prefer not to know” - his aunt Harriet tried to replace her mutant child with the born child of his mother - for the duration of the examination. After the birth of three mutant children, the husband has the right to expel his wife, so Harriet is in despair. But David's mother drives off her sister, and Harriet commits suicide.

A little later, he discovered the gift of sharing thoughts at a distance with several children in the vicinity. A group of young telepaths had enough natural care not to tell anyone about this gift that surrounding adults would take for Rejection. The eldest of the group by age, Anna marries a normal guy - the same one who, as a child, reported to Sophie Wander. She tells him about all, and very soon her husband Alan dies. As it turns out, Axel thus saved his beloved nephew from blackmail. Pregnant first child, Anna does not stand up and ends with herself, leaving an accusatory letter to everyone, including David's younger sister Peter and her own sister Rachel.

Two other girls from the group as a result of piling up events are suspected, arrested, and both die under torture.

As a result, David, along with his younger sister Petra (the owner of a very strong telepathic gift) and cousin Rosalind, flee to the Jungle. With the help of Petra, they manage to establish a connection with the civilized inhabitants of faraway Selandia ( New Zealand ), where telepathy is a common ability for most people. The Selands are organizing a rescue expedition, which at the last moment comes to the aid of David and his companions, who were nearly reached by a detachment of fundamentalists sent to the Jungle.

Arriving in Selandia, David learns the City from his childhood dreams. He and his sister and Rosalinda are now safe, but two of his colleagues remained on Labrador, Michelle and Rachel, who will have to get to safe Selandia on their own.

• David Storm - the protagonist, from his face goes the story. As a child, he was friends with Sophie Wender, knowing about her rejection, but not telling her father. Later he fell in love with Rosalind, but he hid this because of the hostile relations between their families.
• Sophie Wender is a girl born with six toes on each leg. She lived with her parents in a remote hut, could not communicate with other children because of her mutation. It was eventually sterilized and sent to the Jungle, where she died during the attack. Until the end of her life, she kept warm feelings for David.
• Joseph Storm - the father of David and Petra. He is deeply religious and adamant in the matter of Deviations and blasphemy, punishing David for the slightest indiscretion in terms of religion.
• Axel - David's uncle, a former sailor , has seen other lands and therefore was much more open-minded and tolerant of mutants than Joseph Storm. It was he who advised David to carefully conceal the manifestations of his gift.
• Petra Storm - the youngest of the group of telepaths and at the same time the most gifted among them. Involuntarily - without controlling his gift, she became the reason for exposing the whole group.
• Rosalinda Morton , David's cousin, also possessed telepathy. On the one hand, the girl is determined and confident, but at the same time vulnerable and trusting in the depths of her soul.
• Michelle (in another translation Michael) - the most insightful and decisive in the group of telepaths, plays a leading role in the group. He managed to keep his abilities secret, in the finals he was in a detachment of his pursuers and informed David about his movement.
• Rachel is the only telepathic group left in Vaknuk by the end of the novel. She loves Michel and so he makes the decision to come back for her.

Francis McComas, a New York Times columnist , noted that the success of Wyndham’s novel lies in “creating humanly understandable characters who, after all, are more or less human,” and concluded that the novel “will be well marked and remembered for a long time " ^[6] .

Well-known critic and writer Damon Knight wrote that Wyndham “could not understand that six fingers would be quite enough and believable; but the author was drawn to telepathic mutations, he made David one of nine telepaths and pulled the whole plot away from the carefully constructed background in the direction of the damn chase and other cliches at the end ... this is a fatal mistake ” ^[7] .

SFreviews.net gives a mixed review of the novel. On the one hand, "Chrysalids" come painfully close to the status of the most powerful and deep work of John Wyndham. However, “the author catastrophically stumbles at the climax, undermining the thematic basis of the narrative” ^[8] .

Galaxy Reviewer Groff Conklin described the novel as “so skillfully written that the absence of a brilliant new idea is irrelevant” ^[9] . Anthony Boucher also found the novel created from something fresh on a familiar topic, praising Wyndham for "the accumulation of small, believable details" and "more depth and maturity than he showed in previous novels" ^[10] . Critic Peter Miller wrote in Astounding that Wyndham “developed the theme of mutants as plausibly as if “ Odd John ” Stepldon ,“ Slan ” van Vogt and stories from the collection“ Mutant ”did not exist” ^[11] .

There is disagreement among critics whether the intervention at the end of the novel of the expedition of Selandia should be considered as Deus Ex Machina ^[8] . Critics agreed with Wyndham that two different cultures in their development must fight to the death. Wyndham justifies this in the long speech of a woman from Selandia at the end, but her reasoning does not fit well with a call for tolerance in the first half of the novel ^[8] . This conclusion is also present in the Kraken Awakens and Midwich Cuckoos .

In some online libraries you can find the novel "Christ the People", whose authorship is attributed to the Strugatsky brothers . In fact, this is an amateur translation of “Chrysalide” with inserts that mention the realities of various Strugatsky works. The fellow writers have nothing to do with Christ-people, neither as translators, nor as authors ^{[12] [13]} .

• Chrysalids in the library of Maxim Moshkov
• List of publications of the work "Chrysalids" in ISFDB (eng.)