John Wyndham

"Si sabes que es miércoles y la mañana empieza como si fuera un domingo, algo muy grave tiene que estar pasando en alguna parte". De esta forma tan inocua comienza una de las novelas más famosas de catastrofes. Al dia siguiente de que una lluvia de meteoritos caiga sobre Inglaterra, Bill Masen es uno de los pocos afortunados que conserva la vista. Londres esta llena de hombres y mujeres que vagan en busca de ayuda y en algunos casos tratan de esclavizar a quienes todavia pueden ver. Pero en este mundo postapocaliptico tienen que sobrevivir a otra amenaza: los trifidos, unas plantas carnivoras de mas de dos metros de alto, que pueden desplazarse y que poseen aguijones letales. ¿Tienen los seres humanos alguna posibilidad ante un enemigo asi?

Todo comenzó con unas bolas de fuego que caían del cielo y se hundían en las profundidades marinas. Después llegaron las catástrofes en el mar y los ataques en las zonas costeras. Finalmente, el nivel de las aguas empezo a ascenderMike y Phyllis Watson, una pareja de periodistas, relatan como lo que al principio parece ser un curioso incidente se convierte en una calamidad global. Presencian aterradoras escenas de destruccion y ven con impotencia como el peligro avanza ante la inoperancia de los gobiernos y los prejuicios y la inconsciencia de gran parte de la poblacion.El Kraken despierta es un relato de una invasion alienigena en el que lo mas importante es como responde la humanidad a la amenaza de su propia extincion y que esta dispuesta a hacer para sobrevivir.A lo largo de la mañana se amortiguo el viento. A medio dia cayo la niebla y a ultima hora de la tarde era tan espesa que no se veia mas alla de un par de metros. Debian de ser cerca de las diez y media de la noche cuando los tanques marinos surgieron de las tranquilas aguas de Gijon, sin emitir ningun sonido que delatara su presencia hasta que sus bases de metal comenzaron a arañar las rampas de piedra. Quitaron de su camino o aplastaron las pocas barcas que habian sido remolcadas alli. Fue el crujido de la madera lo que hizo que los hombres q...

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.

''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.

''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.

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.

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 . . .

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?

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?

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

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.

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.

It was just a smooth round metal ball, less than a metre in diameter. Although it was still hot from its journey through the huge nothingness of space, it looked quite harmless. But what was it, exactly? A meteor, perhaps - just one of those pieces of rock from outer space that occasionally fall down on to the planet Earth. But meteors don't usually make strange hissing sounds ...In this collection of four of his famous science-fiction stories, John Wyndham creates visions of the future that make us think carefully about the way we live now.