I was surprised to discover that I’d never read this before. I thought I’d devoured everything Wyndham wrote. I have no idea how I managed to overlook it, and I’m sad that I did, because I have the feeling that if I’d read this during my teens it would have become one of those novels that sticks in the memory with a sprinkling of magic. It may well be the author’s best, one of those books that’s hard to put down and which effortlessly increases your reading speed. True, the fact that its narrator begins as a child and is a young adult by the end makes it feel a little like a novel aimed at teens, but there’s plenty to chew on as an adult, and the theme of religious intolerance remains a sadly pertinent one. Great stuff.