Book Review: The Chrysalids

A side project I've been working on in 2018 is catching up on readings books that have been sitting on my to-read shelf for years, and this year that meant getting back into John Wyndham.

I had read a number of his books during my teen years (Midwich Cuckoos, The Kraken Wakes, The Day of the Triffids, etc.) but as Wyndham wrote books from the 30s through to the 70s, I had never got to them all.

The Chrysalids (1955) follows a young man in a post-apocalyptic era wherein society has fallen back into agrarian levels. His community, a close-knit, heavily religious one, focuses on the purity of mankind and deplores any who are different. 

David, our main character, is the son of a local leader, and has a pretty big secret - he's telepathic. This allows him to pass as human, but if anyone were to ever find out, it would certainly mean his death, and likely that of his family as well.

Having now read through Wyndham's earlier work (and some of it has some pretty big problems), part of what I think really works in the novel is the use of David as a our first person narrator, rather than simply have him as the protagonist - seeing the world through David's eyes as a child and becoming a young man made the book much more immersive for me and I think kept the writer much more on task.

A great read and a wonderful introduction into science fiction if you happen to be looking.

Book Review: Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler

All right, I’ll admit that if you show me a book in a post-apocalyptic setting, there’s a good chance it will end up on my “to be read” list. For whatever reason, stories of people dealing with a loss of all infrastructure (meaning a lack of government support and services), and having to move forward with their lives all alone really appeals to me.

To be clear, I’m not in anyway hoping I would have to live through such a scenario, nor my kids or their kids, but as far as fiction goes, it introduces both a world-wide view and often a more intimate portrait of the characters involved.

So let’s look at Octavia E. Butler’s 1993 novel Parable of the Sower. I came upon this title for one of my book clubs, and as the fellow who selected has previously chosen the Cormac McCarthy novel The Road (which I totally loved), and as I had some familiarity with the author (I had read and loved her 1980 novel Wild Seed), I was really looking forward to the read.

The book takes place just as society in the United States is crumbling - not through a bomb or disease, but instead through an ever-increasing wealth gap. The story focuses on a young woman named Lauren Olamina, and views the end of society through her eyes. The story begins with Lauren at a young age, living in a gated community in Southern California, but throughout the book follows her over the course of a number of years. As I get older, this style of narrative has quickly become one of my favourites, as it gives me the opportunity to watch characters change and grow over the course of their lives.

The novel is pretty great, and was followed in 1998 with Parable of the Talents, which, although I haven’t read yet, has definitely been added to my list of books to check out.

A fantastic read.

Why I'm Excited about Revolution

Next Monday (Sept. 17) I’m going to be sitting down to check out what appears to be a show tailor-made for me, NBC’s Revolution.  Taking place in a post-apocalyptic earth 15-years after an event caused all technology to stop, the series follows a family called the Matheson’s (for newcomers to my blog, Richard Matheson is the guy who famously wrote the classic post-apocalyptic story I Am Legend, which was turned into the Vincent Price 1964 film The Last Man on Earth, then the Charlton Heston 1971 filmOmega Man and most recently the 2007 Will Smith film I Am Legend and I’m currently working my way through all his published works).

The show was created by Eric Kripke, who created the CW series Supernatural, which currently rides pretty high on most of my friends I-can’t-belive-bookmonkey-doesn’t-already-watch-this-because-it-is-totally-his-kind-of-thing-list (The sad part is that Supernatural isn’t even at the top of that list) and looks an awful lot like a 2004 science fiction novel called Dies The Fire by S.M. Stirling (which was also pretty great and deserves a review of it’s own here someday).

In the end the first few weeks of September are always like a hyper Christmas for me, full of fancy gifts that I’m sure I’ll play with for years to come, and containing any number of gifts that will surely be broken and forgotten by New Years – I’m just hoping this one post-apocalyptic present may stick around for a while (or at least until I can judge the pilot).

Bookmonkey's top 5 books in a Post-apocalyptic setting

Last week I took a look at Guillermo Del Toro's The Strain, a 2009 horror novel focusing on the beginnings of a vampire apocalypse and stated that the Post-apocalyptic sub-genre is one of my personal favourites. So now I guess it's proper Internet etiquette to hold up my top choices for you to compare and judge (be gentle!).

So here we go:

5. The Stand, by Stephen King

My own personal first taste in the sub-genre, this massive story (over 1000 pages - yes I know I was all on about how giant books like this are the death of genre fiction, but come on - It's The Freaking Stand!), did a lot for me, it made sure I take getting the flu seriously, ensured I would be law abiding - nothing would be worse than being trapped in a jail cell when everyone else died, and heightened my already healthy fear of underground tunnels. For those of you who don't know, Marvel is doing a great adaptation of this series, it's totally worth a look.

4. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson

To be fair I liked the movie (more than Omega Man, and not quite as much as The Last Man on Earth), but the best part of the book comes down to two words - Ben Cortman. Ben is a former friend and neighbour of the protagonist, Robert Neville and spends most of the novel being a HUGE thorn in his side, as Robert spends most of his days hunting for his former friend/Vampire nemesis. Unlike the 2007 film, the vampires in the book are sentient, smart and still have all their human memories.

3. Swan Song, by Robert R. McCammon

For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. McCammon's work, I would actually suggest starting with Boy's Life (a winner of the World Fantasy Award), but if you want some great post-nuclear disaster, good versus evil, hint of magic type stuff, than this book is definitely for you.

2. The City and the Stars, by Arthur C. Clarke

Probably the only pure SF book on the list, This story takes place when a city of people who have survived generations after an apocalypse and are basically immortal, bring to life a young clone (they are all clones) who has the drive to go outside of the city, and what he finds out there changes the world forever.

1. Earth Abides, by George Stewart

This book probably deserves its own review (coming soon), but it is hands down my favourite SF book of the '40s (sorry 1984), and definately my favourite post-apocalyptic book period. It starts by following the life of a Berkeley graduate named Isherwood (Ish for short) Williams, just after WWII, follows him through the apocalypse (a plauge like in The Stand) and then continues to follow his life for the next 4o years in the post-apocalyptic world! Books that follow people through an apocalypse probably make up 80% of the sub-genre, books that take place generations after the apocalypse make up 15% of the sub-genre, but a book that takes the long view definately stands out on its own. Put simply - buy this book.

Now I know I've missed tonnes of peoples favourites in this sub-genre, but believe me, this category is one of my fav's - I could do a top five comics, top five young adult books, top five of classics, the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, and that doesn't even touch movies, TV series or Anime. I'm just talking novels and even with a category this narrow I had to think long and hard about which books would make the cut.

Honourable mention: Children of Men, The Long Tomorrow, A Canticle for Liebowitz, The Handmaid's Tale (I am Canadian after all) - I'm sorry, I'll stop now.

Book Reviews: The Strain

Before I give my review of The Strain, you should know two of the things in horror that make me happy: 1) Guillermo Del Toro, and 2)Post-Apocalyptic settings. Sure there are lots of other things in horror that make me happy, but when you add this specific film-maker to my favourite horror sub-genre, I am going to get very, very excited.

Guillermo Del Toro (pictured to the right), for those of you who don't know, is the director of the Hellboy films, Pan's Labyrinth, Blade II (basically a remake of his own superior film Mimic), and one of my favourite ghost movies ever, The Devil's Backbone. His movies are bizarre, magical, and (to me at least) quite thought provoking.

Post Apocalyptic fiction is my personal favourite sub-section of horror; forget trying to escape serial killers, monsters, and ghosts, what would you do when the whole world gets f**ked up beyond repair? From the great ones (Swan Song, The Stand, Earth Abides) to the laughably cheesy ones (Night of the Comet), to the televised ones (Jericho, Jeremiah) this genre is my personal favourite and don't be surprised if I do a top ten list of both post-apocalyptic movies and books on it in the future.

Now, when I found out that these two great flavours of horror were going to be paired up in not one book, but a new horror trilogy I was ecstatic! To be honest though, even though I pride myself on keeping track of these types of books and movies, this one slipped under my radar, and I ended up noticing it at first in the book section of my local grocery store.

I read the book in just over two days and here (with as few spoilers as possible) is what I thought.

Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

If you like Horror, or Vampires, or Guillermo Del Toro, or action-packed reads, this book is definitely for you. Like a great disaster novel or film, it is structured in a way that you have an ensemble of main characters to invest in, and a race against time (even though you know they can't totally win - the book is the first part of a trilogy after all). The villains are great, every chapter ends with a mini-cliff hanger, and I finished the book desperately wanting the next one (May 2010).

I tend to judge books on two criteria, so let's check it out:

1) Would I read this book again? - yes, definitely yes.

2) Would I recommend this book to a friend? - yes, that's what I'm hoping to be doing with this review.

Looks like The Strain is a definite winner for me. But hey, let me know what you think.

I'll be doing a weekly review on great genre books I've found, alternating between classics and new stuff - feel free to send any suggestions my way!