Book Thoughts 03: John Christopher's "Tripods" Trilogy
P. Korda
JOHN CHRISTOPHER
"Tripods" Trilogy:
THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
THE CITY OF GOLD AND LEAD
THE POOL OF FIRE
It's the future, and the Earth has been taken over by giant metallic
tripods. Humanity has been returned to an essentially rural existence; all
the great cities have been destroyed. The Tripods control humans via
metallic "caps" placed on their heads at the age of 14, which induce
obedience.
Will Parker is a 13-year-old boy, living in a small English town. Due to
be Capped in a year, he is nervous and ambivalent about it. One day, he
meets a vagrant calling himself Ozymandius. Ozymandius, Will discovers, is
not Capped. He is one of a band of free humans living in The White
Mountains, far to the south. He tells Will the truth about the Tripods, and
convinces him to run away from home and join the resistance. He does
this, accompanied by his cousin Henry (who Will does not get along with
very well), and a French boy, Jean-Paul, who they meet on the way.
The first book, _The White Mountains_, chronicles the journey of Will,
Henry, and Jean-Paul's journey to the free humans' refuge. In the second
book, _The City of Gold and Lead_, Will and another boy infiltrate the
City of the Tripods to gather intelligence about humanity's enemies. The
third book, _The Pool of Fire_, describes the final assault against the
alien menace.
I remember seeing these books in the library when I was about 12, the
target age for these novels. Even though I was getting into SF around
that time, I didn't think these novels looked very interesting at
all. I recently skimmed the first book while helping a friend move,
and decided that they looked interesting enough to read. So, I read
'em. They're good boys' adventure novels, good enough that an adult
can really enjoy them.
Christopher does a great job of describing the post-invasion Earth in
such a way that the reader can easily identify things which the
characters themselves don't recognise. Like railroads and
handgrenades. And Paris. The description of the alien city in _The
City of Gold and Lead_ is similarly well-done. The third book is the
weakest of the three. It doesn't really have a single coherent story,
it's more of a series of adventures which serve to wrap up the tale.
I do see why the books didn't interest me as a kid, though. I said
they're _boys'_ adventure novels, and that is so much the case that it
challenges one's WSOD. There are only two or three female characters
in the entire trilogy, and they are all in the first book. This is
particularly odd, because the colony of free humans has supposedly
existed for over a century, ever since the initial invasion, but they
didn't start recruiting the children of the Capped until relatively
recently. They must have reproduced themselves somehow! The series
includes a lot of outdated gender stereotypes. For example, all boys
feel apprehension about getting Capped, but few girls do, like girls
are naturally meek or something like that. So, I don't think it would
be very appealing for girls of the target age.
But, as an adult, one can understand that the books were written in
the old days, when men were men, and women need not apply, and one can
enjoy the story on its own terms.
--
Pam Korda
ko...@midway.uchicago.edu
Eric San Juan
news:37em7.172$N4.2...@news.uchicago.edu...
>
> JOHN CHRISTOPHER
> "Tripods" Trilogy:
> THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
> THE CITY OF GOLD AND LEAD
> THE POOL OF FIRE
>
>
> I recently skimmed the first book while helping a friend move,
> and decided that they looked interesting enough to read. So, I read
> 'em. They're good boys' adventure novels, good enough that an adult
> can really enjoy them.
I had recently reread the trilogy after stumbling across The White
Mountains in a used bookstore. That was the only one in the series I had
read up until that point, but I knew The City Of Gold And Lead from a
comic strip serial that appeared in Boy's Life magazine.
As an adult, they made for a nice adventure read that I knew would have
greatly appealed to me as a teenage boy, but which still dealth with
themes of interest to an adult.It took all of two or three days to
breeze through them, but the stories were generally engrossing (with the
exception you note below).
> Christopher does a great job of describing the post-invasion Earth in
> such a way that the reader can easily identify things which the
> characters themselves don't recognise. Like railroads and
> handgrenades. And Paris. The description of the alien city in _The
> City of Gold and Lead_ is similarly well-done. The third book is the
> weakest of the three. It doesn't really have a single coherent story,
> it's more of a series of adventures which serve to wrap up the tale.
Agreed on all counts. At one point they venture into a ruined city and I
recall wanting to read more of that sort of thing.
Also agree on the last book in the series. It really felt like a forced
wrap-up to the tale and lacked that coherent sense of story the other
two had. The first was pure adventure and was enjoyable through and
through. The second leaped further into SF and was a very interested
"human in an alien world" tale. The third simply tied the loose ends
together.
> I do see why the books didn't interest me as a kid, though. I said
> they're _boys'_ adventure novels, and that is so much the case that it
> challenges one's WSOD.
<snip>
> So, I don't think it would
> be very appealing for girls of the target age.
I can certainly see this. They are very "boyish," in a way, and greatly
appealed to the sense of adventure I enjoyed in my stories as a boy of
12, 13, 14, and 15.
> But, as an adult, one can understand that the books were written in
> the old days, when men were men, and women need not apply, and one can
> enjoy the story on its own terms.
Indeed. After the reread, I've recently recommended them to a few people
as a light weekend read. Very nice stuff and worthy of attaining more
"classic" status among boys' adventure literature, in my opinion.
OWK
> "P. Korda" <ko...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
> news:37em7.172$N4.2...@news.uchicago.edu...
> >
> > JOHN CHRISTOPHER
> > "Tripods" Trilogy:
> > THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
> > THE CITY OF GOLD AND LEAD
> > THE POOL OF FIRE
> >
> <snip summary>
> >
My mother once recounted to me having read them in her youth (in the
late 1940's) or so and liking them very much and thinking them quite
original. Then she read "War of the Worlds" a few years later and her
original opinion took a critical downturn.
I, for one, had just been happy to learn that my mother had read "SF".
I wasn't that surprised actually since I was blessed with being
brought up in a family where *everyone* read. And I do sometimes
wonder if there is a genetic disposition towards books since there are
multiple librarians on both sides of my family and I clerked in
university libraries in order to pay the rent way back when.
- Kurt
Jennie
>all. I recently skimmed the first book while helping a friend move,
>and decided that they looked interesting enough to read. So, I read
>'em. They're good boys' adventure novels, good enough that an adult
>can really enjoy them.
Like most good children's SF, they explore genre concepts with a
great energy and vigour which is missing from much adult writing. Since
they only take about half an hour each to read, they're definitely worth
returning to. ;)
>I do see why the books didn't interest me as a kid, though. I said
Did you ever see the BBC TV series? That was a huge hit among
kids when I was growing up; it got a lot of my contemporaries interested
in SF for the first time. Kids were complaining for years afterwards about
how they backed out of filming the sequels. We were all used to 'Doctor
Who?' and the notion that SF TV programmes would go on forever...
>challenges one's WSOD. There are only two or three female characters
>in the entire trilogy, and they are all in the first book.
Eloise does feature briefly in the second, though she's asleep
at the time. I thought that part was wonderfully silly - the notion of the
Tripods admiring the beauty of human women and keeping them like pieces of
art.
>particularly odd, because the colony of free humans has supposedly
>existed for over a century, ever since the initial invasion, but they
>didn't start recruiting the children of the Capped until relatively
>recently. They must have reproduced themselves somehow!
I always got the impression that there were women there, but
they were in the background - in the kitchen, or something - and the young
male protagonists just didn't happen to interact with them. Kind of like
the cook in 'the Wombles'. As a child, one learns to take these apparent
imbalances in one's stride.
>includes a lot of outdated gender stereotypes. For example, all boys
>feel apprehension about getting Capped, but few girls do, like girls
>are naturally meek or something like that. So, I don't think it would
>be very appealing for girls of the target age.
It might seem strange to girls now, but I think it makes more
sense for the girls in the story. They might not be naturally meek, but it
seemed that they were _raised_ to be meek.
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"You're working for the new realist underground!"
John Andrew Fairhurst
jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk says...
> Did you ever see the BBC TV series? That was a huge hit among
> kids when I was growing up; it got a lot of my contemporaries interested
> in SF for the first time. Kids were complaining for years afterwards about
> how they backed out of filming the sequels
>
Given what they did with what they did film, the possibility of
continuing the series would have been exceptionally difficult :-(
--
John Fairhurst
http://www.johnsbooks.co.uk
Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy
Weekly from 05/09/01 at 18:30 BST
Paul Fraser
have been reprinted by Cosmos books in POD editions.
Paul Fraser
Spectrum SF #6: original fiction from Stephen Baxter & Simon Bradshaw,
Michael Coney, Mary Soon Lee, David Redd, Eric Brown and John Christopher
out now! Next issue: part one of a new novel by Charles Stross.
www.spectrumsf.co.uk
Brad Templeton
P. Korda <ko...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>JOHN CHRISTOPHER
>"Tripods" Trilogy:
> THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
> THE CITY OF GOLD AND LEAD
> THE POOL OF FIRE
>
>It's the future, and the Earth has been taken over by giant metallic
>tripods. Humanity has been returned to an essentially rural existence; all
>the great cities have been destroyed. The Tripods control humans via
>metallic "caps" placed on their heads at the age of 14, which induce
>obedience.
It should be noted, though this is not written SF, that the BBC did
an excellent adaptation of the first two books into a TV series.
I say excellent because they expanded the story, and as is rarely the
case, did a good job to make it better in ways than the books.
Unfortanately they rushed, and never completed the ending. The TV series
is nonetheless, in many ways at a level for adults as well as teens.
--
Brad Templeton's Photo and Pano Gallery: http://www.templetons.com/brad/photo/
William December Starr
jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk (Jennie) said:
>> There are only two or three female characters in the entire
>> trilogy, and they are all in the first book.
>
> Eloise does feature briefly in the second, though she's asleep at
> the time. I thought that part was wonderfully silly - the notion of
> the Tripods admiring the beauty of human women and keeping them like
> pieces of art.
Hmm. It's been a very long time since I read _The City of Gold and
Lead_, but... <rot13> ner lbh fher fur jnfa'g npghnyyl, jryy, re,
*qrnq* -- naq negshyyl cerfreirq - engure guna fyrrcvat? </rot13>
-- William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
P. Korda
I guess I should leave the spoiler protection in.
de-ROT13'ed:
>are you sure she wasn't actually, well, er,
>*dead* -- and artfully preserved - rather than sleeping?
I think that it is made pretty clear that the girls are dead. "Like
butterflies under glass," is how Will describes them.
-pam
Richard Horton
Starr) wrote:
> ner lbh fher fur jnfa'g npghnyyl, jryy, re,
>*qrnq* -- naq negshyyl cerfreirq - engure guna fyrrcvat?
Pevcrf. V pregnvayl gubhtug fur jnf qrnq. Gung jnf gur zbfg puvyyvat
cneg bs gur frevrf sbe zr -- vg'f gur bar ovg gung fgvyy fgvpxf jvgu
zr, arneyl 30 lrnef ba.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
Karl Elvis MacRae
P. Korda <ko...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>In article <9oolsq$b86$1...@panix1.panix.com>,
>William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>>In article <slrn9pprbi...@triffid.demon.co.uk>,
>>jen...@triffid.demon.co.uk (Jennie) said:
>
>>> Eloise does feature briefly in the second, though she's asleep at
>>> the time. I thought that part was wonderfully silly - the notion of
>>> the Tripods admiring the beauty of human women and keeping them like
>>> pieces of art.
>>
>>Hmm. It's been a very long time since I read _The City of Gold and
>>Lead_, but... <rot13> ner lbh fher fur jnfa'g npghnyyl, jryy, re,
>>*qrnq* -- naq negshyyl cerfreirq - engure guna fyrrcvat? </rot13>
>
>I guess I should leave the spoiler protection in.
>
Yeah, me too.
>
>de-ROT13'ed:
>
>>are you sure she wasn't actually, well, er,
>>*dead* -- and artfully preserved - rather than sleeping?
>
>I think that it is made pretty clear that the girls are dead. "Like
>butterflies under glass," is how Will describes them.
Correct. There's no doubt about her condition. I don't find that
silly - the Masters were collecting what Humans considered beautiful,
not what they themselves considered beautiful - collecting them the
way humans do with specimens in a museum.
-Karl
--
Karl Elvis MacRae VLSI CAD Apple Computer km...@apple.com