The Best There Is 6
Born in 1903, novelist and short story writer
John Wyndham’s full name was John Wyndham Parkes
Lucas Beynon Harris, and he used a variety of combinations of it during his career. Indeed, he wrote as John Beynon before the ’39 War, and also used the pseudonyms John Beynon Harris, and Wyndham Parkes. The son of a barrister he was born in Knowle, Warwickshire, but lived at Edgbaston in Birmingham until his parents separated in 1911, and then moved around the country with his mother and younger brother, also a writer, Vivian Beynon Harris. He attended a number of English prepatory schools, but between 1918 and 1921 he attended Bedales .
He was a complex person, and would take on any challenge, and upon leaving school tried his hand at a diversity of jobs including law, farming, art and advertising. Like me,
John Wyndham was influenced by the work of H.G. Wells, and began writing
science fiction stories for a niche market in American magazines. By the mid 1930's his work was being published in book form and in British magazines, particularly, in the first British science fiction magazine Tales of Wonder, which I think was published between 1937 and 1942 (I may be wrong, I know this as I’ve been wrong before!) the very year I was born. Seeing active service in France, he spent the war years working as a censor.
It took a while to regain his artistic inspiration, but in 1951 found great success with The Day of the Triffids, a story describing the invasion of Earth by an alien plant race. He was capable of taking an incredible idea, and by building strong narrative and characters, could turn ordinary science fiction into a work of pure art. From a disaster of some kind, he could easily develop a complex story of human triumph in adversity. Initially John Wyndham was not a professional writer, and began writing short stories for sale in 1925. The novels I recommend are the ones that sent shivers down my spine, The Kraken Wakes, The Day of the Triffids, Chrysalids, and Stowaway to Mars. I have to admit, John was, and remains, an all-time favourite of mine! Sadly John Wyndham died in March of ‘69. Did I detect an icy breeze? Where’s that dial, 25 degrees I think!
Good reading,
Phil Phoenix.