The Chrysalids

The inhabitants of post-apocalypse Labrador have vague knowledge of the “Old People”, a technologically advanced civilization they believe was destroyed when God sent “Tribulation” to the world to punish their forebears’ sins. The inhabitants practise a form of fundamentalist Christianity; they believe that to follow God’s word and prevent another Tribulation, they must preserve absolute normality among the surviving humans, plants and animals, and therefore practice eugenics. Humans with even minor mutations are considered blasphemies and either killed or sterilized and banished to the Fringes, a lawless and untamed area rife with animal and plant mutations, and suggested to be contaminated with radiation.