Tripod Author John Christopher Dead At 89
The man responsible for an unforgettable part of many people’s childhoods has passed beyond the Rim. John Christopher, the British science fiction writer who penned the “Tripods” series, passed away at the age of 89, owing to complications of bladder cancer.
John Christopher is probably best known for the aforementioned “Tripods” trilogy, which encompasses The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire. The series has been a staple of many young science fiction fans and was turned into a BBC TV series back in the ’80s.
In the story, the world has been taken over by three-legged beings (Tripods) which are piloted and run by a race of aliens named Masters. Theres significant world-building here with humans working to free themselves from their captors.
The Tripods series was also adapted into comic book form through Boy’s Life and the BBC Junior Television Magazine BEEB.
The Tripods books were hardly John Christopher’s only work, however. The prolific writer’s bibliography also includes two other young-adult trilogies and 13 novels.
Tripods wasn’t his only series, either. The Swords of the Spirits trilogy, which included The Prince in Waiting, Beyond the Burning Lands, and The Sword of the Spirits, was released between 1970 and 1972.
Plus, let’s not forget the Fireball trilogy, which consisted of Fireball, New Found Land, and Dragon Dance. These were published throughout the 1980s.
Unbeknownst to many, John Christopher was actually a pen name for Christopher Youd, and it wasn’t the only time he wrote under an assumed name. Throughout his career, he also wrote Stanley Winchester, Hilary Ford, William Godfrey, William Vine, Peter Graaf, Peter Nichols, and Anthony Rye.
In total, John Christopher published more than 60 works under his and other names in a career that spanned decades. He was prolific in this sense, amassing as lengthy a writing resume and catalogue as you’ll see.
While the Tripods series is arguably his most famous and beloved work, there is no shortage of John Christopher work to go through. In fact, he first made his mark on the sci-fi genre when he published Death of Grass in 1956. This story is post-apocalyptic in nature about a world that finds itself dealing with the problem of all grasses (wheat, rice, etc) dying off.
The book marked his move into working as a full-time author. It would seem he never looked back.
At the time of his death, he had five children through two wives.
