From the start, the book certainly piqued my interest. I am a sucker for books that have a sociological element to them, and so I wanted to know more about life after the 'tribulation' and how this would affect David.
While reading, I found myself thinking about how people tend to focus on the differences seen in one another rather than looking at the similarities, but also how these differences seem to engender such uneasiness in people. I think this was well reflected in David, who on the one hand appeared to be accepting, or at least understanding, of people's differences, but then could not bear to think about one of his fellow telepaths marrying someone who couldn't 'shape think'. He may have been the hero of the story, but he was essentially no different to the villains.
For me, this book felt like a response to communism. It was published during the time when McCarthyism was rife, and the Cold War was escalating, when people's fears were heightened. Although I had the feeling that Wyndham was trying to suggest that we should be accepting of others, the monologue from the woman from Sealand at the end of the book seemed to imply that some people/races are superior to others, and that is just a fact of life. Even now, this is giving me food for thought.
All in all, I found the book to be a bit too contrived. It was by no means subtle, lacked depth and felt rather laboured in places. This is not to say it wasn't a good read, but of all the books I have read that explore similar themes (which really numbers quite a lot), I would only rank this somewhere in the middle.
