The Dream of a City

Seventy years ago, British science fiction author John Wyndham published his third post-war novel, The Chrysalids. In it a group of pre-teens in a post-apocalyptic North American commune develop telepathic powers. These powers manifest in two ways. First, they allow the children to send each other messages in what can best be described as an ever-present ethereal group chat. Second, as the narrator David tells us in the first line of the book, they begin to dream of faraway places. ‘When I was quite small I would sometimes dream of a city—which was strange because it began before I even knew what a city was.’