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A Wrinkle in the Skin Paperback – March 9, 2019

by John Christopher (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 200 ratings
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One night, the island of Guernsey convulsed. As shock followed shock, the landscape tilted violently in defiance of gravity. When dawn came and the quakes had stilled to tremblings, Matthew Cotter gazed out in disbelief at the pile of rubble that had been his home. The greenhouses which had provided his livelihood were a lake of shattered glass, the tomato plants a crush of drowned vegetation spotted and splodged with red. Wandering in a daze of bewilderment through the devastation, he came to the coast, looked out towards the sea ...There was no sea: simply a sunken alien land, now drying in the early summer sun. Gradually, a handful of isolated survivors drifted together. But where were the rescue missions from the mainland? How far did the destruction actually extend? For Matthew, whose beloved daughter Jane had recently moved to England , finding the answer was all he had left to live for.
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  1. Print length
    256 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    March 9, 2019
  4. Dimensions
    5.06 x 0.64 x 7.81 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    1911410105
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1911410102
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sam Youd was born in Lancashire in April 1922, during an unseasonable snowstorm. As a boy, he was devoted to the newly emergent genre of science-fiction: 'In the early thirties, ' he later wrote, 'we knew just enough about the solar system for its possibilities to be a magnet to the imagination.' Over the following decades, his imagination flowed from science-fiction into general novels, cricket novels, medical novels, gothic romances, detective thrillers, light comedies ... In all he published fifty-six novels and a myriad of short stories, under his own name as well as eight different pen-names. He is perhaps best known as John Christopher, author of the seminal work of speculative fiction, The Death of Grass. He wrote A Wrinkle in the Skin whilst living in Guernsey, and used the island as a significant element in the story. Shortly afterwards he started on The Tripods, the first of the stream of novels in the genre he pioneered, young adult dystopian fiction. 'I read somewhere, ' Sam once said, 'that I have been cited as the greatest serial killer in fictional history, having destroyed civilisation in so many different ways - through famine, freezing, earthquakes, feral youth combined with religious fanaticism, and progeria.' In an interview towards the end of his life, conversation turned to a recent spate of novels set on Mars and a possible setting for a John Christopher story: strand a group of people in a remote Martian enclave and see what happens. The Mars aspect, he felt, was irrelevant. 'What happens between the people, ' he said, 'that's the thing I'm interested in.'

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The SYLE Press
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 9, 2019
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1911410105
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1911410102
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.7 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.06 x 0.64 x 7.81 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 200 ratings

About the author

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John Christopher

John Christopher

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Sam Youd was born in Lancashire in April 1922, during an unseasonable snowstorm.

As a boy, he was devoted to the newly emergent genre of science-fiction: 'In the early thirties,' he later wrote, 'we knew just enough about the solar system for its possibilities to be a magnet to the imagination.'

Over the following decades, his imagination flowed from science-fiction into general novels, cricket novels, medical novels, gothic romances, detective thrillers, light comedies ... In all, under his own name and a variety of pen-names, he published fifty-six novels and a myriad of short stories.

He is perhaps best known as John Christopher, author of the seminal work of speculative fiction, The Death of Grass, and a stream of novels in the genre he pioneered, YA dystopian fiction, beginning with The Tripods Trilogy.

'I read somewhere,' Sam once said, 'that I have been cited as the greatest serial killer in fictional history, having destroyed civilisation in so many different ways - through famine, freezing, earthquakes, feral youth combined with religious fanaticism, and progeria.'

Titles published under the pen-name of Hilary Ford and under his own name are also available on Amazon.

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4.3 out of 5 stars
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This is the way the world ends...this time.
5 out of 5 stars
This is the way the world ends...this time.
John Christopher writes exciting sci fi novels about catastrophic shifts in the world order. He has tackled everything from mass starvation (The Death Of Grass) to epic changes in the earth's weather (The Long Winter) to alien invasions(The Tripod trilogy) to giant earthquakes, which is the central catastrophe of this book. After an enormous series of cataclysmic earthquakes wipes out modern civilization, a group of survivors struggle to stay alive in the ruins of the British Isles. This is one of John Christophers most gripping adventure stories, filled with strange settings and memorable characters; I especially liked the image of the oil tanker beached on the bottom of the now dry English Channel, its sole occupant slowly going mad.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • crowcounters
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for any fan of The Road
    Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    John Christopher is a superb author of apocalyptic fiction. I have now read two of his books (the other is The Death of Grass) and can't wait to read the next.

    A Wrinkle in the Skin tells the story of a man who after a massive, Earth changing earthquake sets out to find his daughter who lives on her own back on the mainland of England. As he makes his way across the changed landscapes he is joined by a boy who has no family and the two continue his quest to find his daughter.

    The book is heartwarming and the bond between the boy and the man becomes stronger as their adventures continue. This is where the book really shines. I highly recommend not only this book but checking out anything else from this author, I will be.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Steve Meyer
    4.0 out of 5 stars Great story but needed a better ending
    Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2008
    Verified Purchase
    To start let me say that the author is one of my favorites and that is why I purchased this book. I am also a fan of this genre too. I found the book very entertaining and interesting. The thought of earthquakes so bad that the world reverts back to it infancy is terrifying and believable. In this case the people do horrible things to survive because they know no better way to survive in such a bleak world were there are no more supermarkets and drive thru windows. The only weak part, I thought, was the end. Christopher usually has some very good endings that make you really take a step back and look at yourself and the world a little differently. This ending was a little more "happy" but also abrupt and i felt i needed a little more explanation or closure. Something explain what eventually happens to the main character and his boy companion.

    Overall it was a good read, but also check out the Sword of the Spirits Trilogy and the Tripods Trilogy by the same author. Very good books, geared for young readers, but good at any age. You'll be glad you did.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • S. H. Davis
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read
    Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2009
    Verified Purchase
    My friend, Science Fiction writer K.D. Kragen recommended this to me when we were discussing what a seabed might look like were the water to suddenly disappear. This is a very good read by British author John Christopher. It may seem a little dated to some, given when it was written, and the very "British" style of writing, but make no mistake, it is tense and hard to put down. It leaves just enough for speculation that the imagination is indeed exercised. Which is good.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars A Dystopian Tale
    Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    I loved this book. It is really timeless, it doesn't read like a book that's 50 or so years old. It's a wonderful display of the breakdown of society, yet finding some small bit of humanity in there. There is good, there is bad, there is all of the crazy in between.

    It is a fast read, and read that takes you in. I found myself enjoying this so much, that I went immediately out and purchased his book The Death of Grass (https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Classics-Death-Grass-Penguin/dp/0141190175/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472614714&sr=8-1&keywords=the+death+of+grass)
    One person found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Ground-breaking geopocalyptic masterpiece!
    Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2003
    John Christopher has written several novels of global catastrophe,of which this is certainly the best.
    The basic premise is that of extreme earthquakes on a worldwide scale, which reduce towns and cities to piles of rubble and plunge the survivors straight back into the Stone Age. Much of western Europe is drastically uplifted, transforming the English Channel into a muddy desert overnight - whist elsewhere, lands are thrown down and drowned under inrushing seas.
    The cataclysm and its aftermath are seen from the viewpoint of Matthew Cotter, a Gurnsey horticulturalist who finds himself one of a handful left alive on the former island. The future they face, attempting to begin life again with what they can scavenge amid the devastation, seems hard and uncertain enough.
    Matthew then treks across the empty seabed to England, in the faint hope that his student daughter has also survived. He finds the situation far worse in a wider land, with many competing bands of scavengers. Pillage, rape and murder are now the norm as mankind revets to utter barbarism.
    The actual scientific likelihood of such immense convulsions in the Earth is very doubtful, and the author's explanation - as a new mountain-building episode - is certainly nonsense, since such events take tens of millions of years. The sheer dramatic impact of a global earthquake, however, makes this book greatly entertaining for all but the most pedantic.
    Its central emphasis is on the reactions of people, totally unprepared, who see their world turned (almost literally) upside down and everyone they knew destroyed. While some find natural strength and determination, even leadership, others respond with violence, with apathy and despair, or retreat into lunacy. John Christopher displays a subtle and far-ranging mastery of characterisation. He has created a stark and very believable vision of human struggles to survive in a world made suddenly strange, lawless, primitive and hostile.
    It might have been even better to see Matthew Cotter and others ten or twenty years on, after the barbaric majority had mostly starved or slain each other and nature had begun to reclaim the shattered country. Would naval vessels have survived in mid-ocean and acted as nuclei for new communities? Or would the fallout from wrecked nuclear power stations have caused widespread cancers, sterility, mutations - and ultimately lethal new diseases, which would finish off the human race?
    This is, surely, the essence of "thought-provoking" literature.
    Regardless of unanswered questions, I would rate "A Wrinkle in the Skin" as being among the finest pieces of speculative fiction I have read.
    117 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • DC
    5.0 out of 5 stars An end-of-the-world masterpiece
    Reviewed in Canada on July 1, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Christopher’s best! A shocking, surprising, heart-warming, terrifying, adventurous story of a man and boy struggling to survive in a world turned upside down by earthquakes which completely transforms the landscape, including shifting the seas. There are a string of exciting episodes, but the best is the crossing of the now-dry English Channel and the discovery of a tanker ship and it’s captain sitting on the bottom. Comparable to The Day of the Triffids and On The Beach, which is high-praise indeed.
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  • DOM B
    5.0 out of 5 stars Better than most
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 28, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Very enjoyable. Mr Christopher does like to describe the female form in detail! Usual 50s male female stereotypes-I suspect women would find his writing uncomfortable. However quite a good story and the main character is human fallible and believable.But why did he not carry the shotgun with him at all times?
    A page turner and a good ending I thought.
    There are always holes in the world building:I think a lot more livestock would have survived and there are hardly any cars seen or mentioned-and just piles of rubble which hardly seem to contain anything of use apart from tins of food (and contraceptives!) . The Yahoos were really dangerous but no one appears to defend themselves except by hiding.But the story is simple,generally plausible and I think excellent. Not as good as the Death of Grass but better than most.
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  • Mace
    5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging and ultimately hopefull.
    Reviewed in Australia on June 10, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    While an older novel, the style of the prose has lost nothing and is easy for a modern reader to consume. While similar in scope with "The Road" it has a much more realistic portrayal of human interaction, and, ultimately, a more hopeful conclusion.
    Previous reviewers who claim the book is sexist are being ridiculous. Don't believe them, do yourself a favour and give this engaging tale a go.
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  • AReader
    4.0 out of 5 stars Worth a read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 7, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Well written and a decent read. It ended rather suddenly, but life does not provide clear endings. To the reviewer who said it was sexist, I would say that yes, the protagonist is male and a female version would have been worth writing - or still would be. A challenge to somebody.

    However, real world situations of chaos such as civil war, rape seems to be a common response. If you accept our only biological purpose is to perpetuate our genes, then rape and harem building by strong males are logical reactions to chaos, just as monogamy for the majority is a logical reaction to social stability. Each of them maximises the production of offspring.
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  • Jerz Jurkiewicz
    5.0 out of 5 stars Science Fiction in Guernsey?
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 20, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    I owned a bookshop in Guernsey and have a large library and I was so pleased to find what must be the only science fiction book based mainly in Guernsey. I also loved John Wyndham's books and to find one written in the same style was even better. This "post/apocalyptic" book was original in concept and it is very clear that John Christopher knew the topography of Guernsey, the surrounding islands and English Channel as the book is well detailed. Broadly, after huge earthquakes devastate the area (possibly Europe or further) like Day of the Triffids very few people are left and the search is on to find other survivors, especially the protagonists daughter in the UK. There is only one way to do this- walk the English Channel.

    Living in Guernsey I am obviously biased but I do believe this is an excellent book in the style of John Wyndham. I also liked the Prince in Waiting series of 3 books, another post apocaliptic story set in southern England.
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