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.
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4 comments:

  1. Jack Eason7 February 2012 at 14:46:00 GMT

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

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  2. Anonymous7 February 2012 at 22:42:00 GMT

    RIP loved the Tripods trilogy. Still holds up

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  3. Elfy8 February 2012 at 03:43:00 GMT

    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.

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  4. Anonymous8 February 2012 at 14:40:00 GMT

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

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