Review of John Wyndham's novels (Phase 1)

Hi everyone!

I spent the last four days reading novels exclusively by John Wyndham. In what I call Phase 1 I've completed:

The Kraken Wakes
The Day of the Triffids
The Chrysalids

Phase 2 will start shortly and I'll be reading the rest of his works (The Midwich Cuckoos, Chocky, The Secret People, Trouble with Lichen, and The Seeds of Time).

The best book of Phase 1 was hands-down The Chrysalids. (I think this is widely accepted as the truth anyway.) There were a lot of themes in this book screaming very loudly. The difference between people, acceptance of people who are different, fear of differences, unwillingness/inability to change, the arrogance of man right toward its extinction, and so on and so forth. A lot of the themes seemed quite familiar (probably that's why it isn't my favourite) but I could still appreciate that it was well done. And it is a great book!

My favourite book however was The Day of the Triffids. There is just something about the style of Triffids and the main character's journey (not the somewhat silly premise) that appeals to me more than The Chrysalids although they were both very well written. The main character of Triffids (William) is not a special hero. He's just an average guy with some knowledge of plants. He's constantly pulled from one side to the other trying to decide what is right and he doesn't give up even when all seems lost. The romance was a bit weird at first... but I got used to it. William is a character who can be more easily related to than for example David (Chrysalids) or Michael (Kraken).

About The Kraken Wakes I can't really say too much. The book's concept was there, but it was poorly developed, and the ending about as anticlimactic as an ending could be. The main character was detached from most of the plot and in the end his struggles were all solved somewhat magically and not by himself. (It has to be mentioned that there was no deus ex machina however. The plot simply fizzled out at the end and then some aspects that had been foreshadowed earlier in the book were brought back to tie it off somewhat.) It wasn't very masterfully done and mostly only the first half of the book held my attention.

All in all I never thought I'd like a 'classic' as much as I do John Wyndham's books. They are well-written and not overly florid with details as some others. His writing style is very simple and understandable even when he handles 'large' concepts/themes. I want to compare it a little to The Great Gatsby - another absolute favourite of mine - although obviously Gatsby lacks the science fiction details. John Wyndham's books (as well as The Great Gatsby) are full of important themes without being choking to the reader. The dryer philosophy is kept short and in bursts. The whole novel however is filled with supporting evidence for the themes these authors bring about. The whole setup of the scenery and situations in which characters find themselves serve to underline the topics discussed.

The books of John Wyndham are truly masterful works. (Although The Kraken Wakes was less so than the others.)

That being said these novels read a lot more like long short stories than novels. There is mostly a focus on one or two issues (survival and escape as opposed to humaneness in The Day of the Triffids, being different and the effects of that in a society that despises everything different in The Chrysalids, and how to deal with the unknown in The Kraken Wakes) and have only a few important characters each. There is no useless scenes in any of the books (except in Kraken where one could argue most of what happens after London is a bit so-so). They are quite concise and folded within themselves in a way that doesn't easily let them unwrap or even lose a single scene.

Although the books are all 70 years old by now they are still relevant for today's world (and I'd argue in the case of The Chrysalids more than ever!). I'd definitely recommend them as both a good entry to science-fiction and those who know the genre well. I also recommend them to all those who simply like books. As the copyright of most of them is now public it should be fairly easy to get a hold of a free copy. If not, then there's, as always, Amazon.

I hope you'll give these books a try. They're short and definitely worth it.

WriteBot.