John Wyndham

Contemporary / British English (Available May 2008) The island of Tanakuatua seems like heaven to the forty people who go there to create a new society. But soon they start to die in a horrible way. Something strange is in the forest. Two of the group decide to fight

''The Sun Bird was beginning to travel fast, close to the edge of the whirlpool. They could look right down into the hollow of spinning water''.While flying over Africa''s New Sea, a water project in the heart of the Sahara desert, Mark Sunnet''s rocket plane crashes and is sucked through a hole in the desert floor into a strange, cavernous new world.There, he and his partner Margaret encounter the survivors of an ancient race of underground dwellers whose whole existence is now threatened. Captured and forced to live with other prisoners taken from the surface, the pair know that they must escape before the waters above drown them all . . .The Secret People, published in 1935, is John Wyndham''s first novel.

When Bill Masen wakes up blindfolded in hospital there is a bitter irony in his situation. Carefully removing his bandages, he realizes that he is the only person who can see: everyone else, doctors and patients alike, have been blinded by a meteor shower.Now, with civilization in chaos, the triffids - huge, venomous, large-rooted plants able to ''walk'', feeding on human flesh - can have their day.

''It was a desert. A vista of reddish rocks and drifted sand, arid and hot, extending to the limits of their view. A dreary waste upon which nothing moved or grew...''.For British pilot Dale Currance the Keuntz Prize - to be awarded to the first person to take a spaceship to another planet and back - is the ultimate challenge. Not only has he to build a ship to survive the journey, assemble a top-notch crew and choose a destination, he''s also got to beat the Russians and Americans.Soon the GLORIA MUNDI blasts off from Salisbury Plain, bound for Mars. There''s only one problem - a stowaway called Joan. Not only does her presence wreck calculations and threaten the mission, but her tale suggests that Mars may be a more dangerous destination than they ever expected.

In Chocky, pioneering science-fiction master John Wyndham confronts an enigma as strange as anything found in his classic works The Day of the Triffids or The Chrysalidsthe mind of a child.Its not terribly unusual for a boy to have an imaginary friend, but Matthews parents have to agree that hisnicknamed Chockyis anything but ordinary. Why, Chocky demands to know, are there twenty-four hours in a day? Why are there two sexes? Why cant Matthew solve his math homework using a logical system like binary code? When the questions Chocky asks become too advanced and, frankly, too odd for teachers to answer, Matthews parents start to wonder if Chocky might be something far stranger than a figment of their sons imagination.Chocky, the last novel Wyndham published during his life, is a playful investigation of what being human is all about, delving into such matters as child-rearing, marriage, learning, artistic inspirationand ending with a surprising and impassioned plea for better human stewardship of the earth.

Matthew's parents are worried. At eleven, he's much too old to have an imaginary friend, yet they find him talking to and arguing with a presence that even he admits is not physically there. This presence - Chocky - causes Matthew to ask difficult questions and say startling things. Who is Chocky? And what could it want with a 11-year-old boy?

Francis and Diana, two scientists investigating a lichen, discover it has a remarkable property: it retards the aging process. Francis, realising the implications for the world of a youthful, wealthy elite, wants to keep it secret, but Diana sees an opportunity to overturn the male status quo by using the lichen to inspire a feminist revolution.

The island of Tanakuatua seems like heaven to the 40 people who go there in order to create a utopian society, but soon they start to die in a horrible way and it seems that something strange and dea

When Bill Masen wakes up to a catastrophe, he is glad that bandages covered his eyes the night before. He finds a population rendered helpless by the green lights; now blind, they are at the mercy of the Triffids. Once, with their ability to move and their carnivorous habits, the Triffids were just botanical curiosities. But now, with vulnerable human flesh to feast upon, these homicidal plants are set to turn town and country alike into a killing ground, and, perhaps, replace humanity at the top of the food chain...

Matthew's parents are worried. At eleven, he's much too old to have an imaginary friend, yet they find him talking to and arguing with a presence that even he admits is not physically there. This presence - Chocky - causes Matthew to ask difficult questions and say startling things: he speaks of complex mathematics and mocks human progress. Then, when Matthew does something incredible, it seems there is more than the imaginary about Chocky. Which is when others become interested and ask questions of their own: who is Chocky? And what could it want with an eleven-year-old boy?

Las Crisálidas está ambientada en el futuro, después de una guerra nuclear a nivel mundial de efectos devastadores. David, el joven héroe de la novela, vive en el seno de una compacta comunidad de fundamentalistas genéticos y religiosos, siempre atentos a cualquier desviación en las normas de la creación divina. Toda planta anómala se quema en público mientras se cantan himnos. Los humanos anómalos (que en realidad no son humanos) también están condenados a la destrucción, a no ser que consigan huir a Bordes, un territorio salvaje en el que, según dicen las autoridades, uno se puede fiar de nada y en el que el demonio hace su trabajo. David crece rodeado de advertencias: MANTÉN PURO EL REBAÑO DEL SEÑOR, CUÍDATE DE LOS MUTANTES. Al principio David no se hace ninguna pregunta. Sin embargo, después se da cuenta de que él también está fuera de la normalidad, que tiene un poder que podría condenarlo a la destrucción o llevarlo a un nuevo y hasta ahora jamás pensado mundo de libertad.

The most famous catastrophe novel of the twentieth century, John Wyndham''s The Day of the Triffids, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time.''When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.''When a freak cosmic event renders most of the Earth''s population blind, Bill Masen - one of the lucky few to keep his sight - finds himself trapped in a London jammed with sightless mobs who prey on those who can still see. But another menace stalks blind and sighted alike. With nobody to stop them the Triffids - walking carnivorous plants with lethal stingers - rise up as humanity stumbles and falls . . .

Midwich: peaceful, charming even, but a nowhere place, where nothing happens. Then, something remarkable occurs; remarkable and quietly terrible. And now there are strangers here, golden-eyed children, born to the women of the village, but not of them. For they are other, different and powerful. They came that late summer evening, when the village and its inhabitants fell into an enforced and lengthy sleep ... and then awoke to the slow realization that nothing would ever be the same.