Pages : 200
Overall Mark : 8/10
David’s father doesn’t approve of Angus Morton’s unusually large horses, calling them blasphemies against nature. Little does he realise that David and his friends have their own secret aberration, which would label them as mutants. And mutants, as everyone knows, should be burned. But as the children grow older it becomes more difficult to conceal their differences from the village elders. Soon they face a choice: wait for eventual discovery – and death – or flee to the terrifying and mutable Badlands...
JOHN WYNDHAM (1903-69)
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris started writing short stories in 1925. He wrote under many pen names, eventually settling on John Wyndham for his modified form of science fiction, which he called ‘logical fantasy’. He is best-known as the author of The Day of the Triffids, but he wrote many other successful novels including The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned).
VERDICT
It’s amazing how much of this book seems to have been borrowed from over the years by comic books; from the mutants feared and hated by society for being different, to the appearance of an actual spider-man, this book is a must read for anyone who has ever been a fan of comic books or dystopian fantasies. Wyndham does a wonderful job of creating a world that instantly feels familiar in a child-like friendly way, then pulls the rug out from under us to reveal how truly terrifying other people’s hatred can be.
