THE CHRYSALIDS
 John Wyndham
Originally published by Del Rey 1955; reissued by Carroll & Graf November
1993; $3.95 paperback; ISBN 0-786-70041-6
Highly Recommended

"And God created man in his own image. And God decreed that man should have
one body, one head, two arms and two legs; that each arm should be jointed
in two places and end in one hand; that each hand should have four fingers
and one thumb; that each finger should bear a flat finger-nail..." and so on
went the affirmation that all heard each Sunday in church. Any deviation
from this was an abomination, a blasphemy before God who had fashioned man
in his own image and must be dealt with immediately before such evil could
propagate and spread. Young David knew the words by heart for they were
reinforced daily by his evangelical father, yet how could his friend Sophie
be considered evil?? Sure she had a sixth toe on each foot, but certainly
she was no threat to anyone. But when her abnormality was discovered, David
soon learned to what extent his society would go in these cases. To make
matters worse he now began to find he had an invisible deviation himself,
telepathic powers. Soon David and his new friends, fellow "picture talkers,"
would live in fear of their lives, persecuted and hunted by family and
friends. Where could they go but to the Fringes, the place where
abominations like themselves escaped to? Would they find peace and
acceptance there?

Post disaster stories are perhaps one of the most worked subgenres in
science fiction. From H.G. Wells' THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, to Walter
Miller's classic A CANTICLE FOR LIEBOWITZ, to David Brin's recently filmed
THE POSTMAN, we seem to be fascinated with man's abilities/inabilities to
cope with what nature or himself brings to pass. Usually these tales are
centred around humankind's attempts to find a sense of self and society
amongst chaos and are heavily salted with religious overtones, to this
extent RE-BIRTH is no different. The microcosm we are presented with is a
highly evangelical society where even the deviants, much to our
protagonist's chagrin, have their own spiritual dogma. In many ways this
story is a condemnation of religious extremism, yet surprisingly even the
most enlightened thinkers of the story are monotheistic. That's not to say
that enlightened thinkers have to be atheists, but I marveled at the fact
that in a virtually destroyed world no one seemed to even question the
existence of a God. What really sets this book apart from the others I've
read is that it's from the perspective of children, immature beings who know
the words being preached to them, but who are incapable of applying their
meanings to their innocent worlds.

This is a very interesting and well written story. And even though it's
written in the typical austere English style, it deserves the label,
"classic."