The Chrysalids
by John Wyndham
It is some time hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of years after an
atomic war shattered civilization and left large parts of the world
uninhabitable. Among the rural people of what used to be
Newfoundland, the danger of mutation has led to a strict and
ruthless definition of what constitutes humanity. Any deviation
from the norm is considered an abomination. If livestock, it is
slaughtered. Humans are banished to the barbarous lands known as
the Fringes.
David Strorm is a young boy being raised by a religious-zealot
father who takes the commandments against mutation even more
seriously than his society requires. Dad is such a meanie that when
his sister-in-law appears, begging for the life of a baby whose
mutation she considers slight, he banishes her from his sight with
a loud ringing sermon about her wickedness. David, a secret
telepath who shares thought-communication with several others his
own age, knows his survival depends on his father never being
allowed to find out what he is.
One day in early childhood, David meets a young girl named Sophie,
and discovers she's hiding an extra toe. He likes her, so he
promises to keep her secret. Her fate provides him a stern warning
about what might be his own.
Then his younger sister Petra is born—and she has a mutation so
powerful it endangers David and his telepath friends ...
