Tuesday 7 February 2012

RIP John Christopher

Samuel Youd - better-known by his pen-name, John Christopher - passed away on Friday at the age of 89.


Christopher is best-known for his adult SF disaster novel, The Death of Grass (1956), and for his YA SF series, The Tripods (1967-68, 1988). The Tripods depicted the aftermath of an alien invasion of Earth, in which humans are forced to wear mind-controlling 'caps' by the three-legged titular aliens (who ride around in HG Wells-esque war machines). The BBC adapted the first two books into a TV series in 1984-85, and rumours of a film version of the trilogy have abounded for years.

Youd also wrote detective and mainstream fiction under a variety of pseudonyms, including Hilary Ford, William Godfrey, Peter Graaf, Stanley Winchester, Peter Nichols and Anthony Rye.

4 comments:

Jack Eason said...

RIP John. I loved the Television series "The Tripods". Its a crying shame it was never completed.

Anonymous said...

RIP loved the Tripods trilogy. Still holds up

Elfy said...

That is sad news. I read a lot of John Christopher as a teen, and he's one of the authors responsible for my introduction to the SFF genre.

Anonymous said...

I remember quite clearly being freaked out and enthralled by the The Tripods books in primary school. RIP.