Match BookThe Chrysalids
John Wyndham
1955 · 200 pages · Science fiction
How it reads
The Chrysalids is science fiction (dystopian science fiction, specifically), and its dominant mood is eerie. It's atmospheric and uncanny, with a sense that something is wrong. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.
It's set in a rural setting, in the future, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are identity, class and society and survival. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is bittersweet: it resolves, but at a price. At 200 pages it's a quick read. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something eerie
- you want something to chew on
- you want a complete story in one book
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy or heartwarming
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- science fiction
- Author gender
- male
- Author experience
- prolific veteran
- Setting: place
- rural
- Setting: time
- future
- Mood / feeling
- eerie
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- short
- Narrative style
- third person, one viewpoint
- Publication era
- classic
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Ending style
- bittersweet
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
The Martian ChroniclesRay BradburyShares: science fiction, eerie mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace- The Drowned WorldJ.G. BallardShares: science fiction, eerie mood, heavy and literary tone, future setting
- Womb CityTlotlo TsamaaseShares: science fiction, eerie mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- Planet For TransientsPhilip K. DickShares: science fiction, eerie mood, moderate pace, future setting
- SnowglobeSoyoung ParkShares: science fiction, eerie mood, dystopian science fiction, moderate pace
- Lost Ark DreamingSuyi Davies OkungbowaShares: science fiction, heavy and literary tone, dystopian science fiction, moderate pace
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