John Christopher passes

[Extollager]

John Christopher died yesterday (Feb. 4).

http://sf-encyclopedia.com/news/john-christopher-(1922-2012)/

Like many of us, I suppose, I have read little of his work -- the famous Tripods trilogy; No Blade of Grass; and one other, a young-adult post-plague kind of story. I saved the issues of The Saturday Evening Post that serialized No Blade when they were discarded by a library! Imagine that very grim story appearing in magazines with covers like this (yes, one of the installments appeared in this issue):

Christopher (Sam Youd) wrote a fine short article for the much-missed excellent London-based magazine Encounter, about C. S. Lewis and his wife, whom he knew. He knew her better than Lewis, I think, because Christopher and she were involved in London sf circles.

 

[Dave]

It seems very strange that only a few weeks ago someone was asking in the Book Search forum about the Tripods books. For once, I was actually able to answer them. It was only when I Googled John Christopher that I realised it was a pseudonym and that his back-catalogue was so much larger. I haven't read anything else by him, but as a young pre-teenager I enjoyed that series. They were among the books that drew me into reading SF & F. What other Sam Youd stories are essential reading?

 

[dask]

Same here, haven't read anything by him but have picked up a few of his books that looked to good to pass up. One is THE RAGGED EDGE, and the other is THE LITTLE PEOPLE. How you gonna walk away from a cover sporting elves with swastikas on their sleeves?

 

[Extollager]

Same here, haven't read anything by him but have picked up a few of his books that looked to good to pass up. One is THE RAGGED EDGE, and the other is THE LITTLE PEOPLE. How you gonna walk away from a cover sporting elves with swastikas on their sleeves?

It was serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, with Part 2 appearing in an issue with a Bonestell cover!

Part Three (of three) appeared thus:

 

[dask]

Cool covers. Thanks.

 

[Extollager]

His passing is noted in the British MSM.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/06/john-christopher-samuel-youd

 

[Tiffany]

That is sad to hear. I thought his books were very good & I've read most of them.
RIP John Christopher.

 

[Perpetual Man]

When we were at school, being asked to read science fiction by the teachers was unheard of, so it made us all delighted when we were asked to read the Tripods trilogy, and have it treated as seriously as anything else we had been asked to read.

I have to admit to really enjoying them, but never got around to reading anything else by him.

 

[Tiffany]

I started reading his books when I joined our local library, asked if there was any objection to me getting childrens books out & they said no, John Christophers books were in the childrens section & I read all they had.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I haven't read the Tripods Trilogy but I loved the Guardians.

 

[blacknorth]

Very sorry to hear this - I've read most of Christopher's books, and he maintained a very high standard over a great number of years. His influence is untold and if we lived in a fairer, less fickle, world he would be spoken of in the same way as John Wyndham and, perhaps, JG Ballard.

His numerous apocalypse novels were particularly good, ranging from virus (Death of Grass) to earthquakes (Wrinkle in the Skin) to climate change (The World in Winter). His Tripods trilogy is justifiably famous, having fired many childhood imaginations in the UK, and he also did a neat line in horror (The Little People & The possessors). He was the author of a number of fairly straight thrillers, the best of which was The Long Voyage, which involved the eerie trek of a ship's company across the ice sheet.

One of the best UK sf author's of the past 60 years; the passing of a phenomenon rather than a man.