A very interesting book and, in my opinion, the best of Wyndham's novels. The first science fiction novel I ever read was The Day of the Triffids, which is probably Wyndham's most famous, and most popular. It sold very well in the 1950s and found its way into the national consciousness and even school curricula, where I encountered it more than a decade later. For some reason, people seemed to be able to relate to the idea of ​​a group of intelligent people. , giant walking plants taking over the world – surely he wasn't referring to the Russians? As much as I liked The Triffids, it was The Chrysalis that I next read of my own free will, and this was the book that would become one of the "landmark" novels in my life: one of those that you know you will read many times and that you will have always have a copy in your library. It completely captured my imagination and put me right there with the protagonists when the action starts to heat up. Now the plot. Although it is never explicitly mentioned, it is clear that the events take place in a post-nuclear holocaust world that has taken some time to recover. The legacy of the explosion still remains in the form of “no-go” areas of land, called “badlands,” and malformations in the offspring of everything from plants to humans. The other important factor is that the Bible, in the form of the Old Testament, survived Armageddon to strongly dominate the life of a largely evangelical community, which is the answer to their need to survive and once again control the their world. Unfortunately, anything born with any kind of physical defect is burned (plants), slaughtered (animals), or banished to the badlands (humans) as abominations in the eyes of God. Unlucky humans in this position tend to become a bit rebellious as they know that there is a tendency for people who set foot in the wastelands to die sooner rather than later. Wyndham's clever ploy is to introduce a group of humans who are physically normal, but have been given the power of telepathy and who gradually form a group that has the same disruptive potential in the eyes of society as a group of protestors anti-capitalists. seems to have on ours. By now you should have the idea that it's quite a complex book and one