The Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher

A wonderful sci-fi trilogy

Trilogy originally published in 1967 and 1968.

The White Mountains is just the first in a trilogy of sci-fi adventures aimed at young people. This classic trilogy was a childhood favorite of mine and I was fortunate enough to have rediscovered them. I re-read them after 20+ years and still find them to be engaging and really quite good. The second book is called The City of Gold and Lead and the final book is The Pool of Fire.

The premise of The Tripods Trilogy is that an alien race called the "Masters" have taken over earth, destroyed its great cities and control men's minds with a device called "the cap". All people are capped at age 14 and human beings live in small villages at a near-medieval level of technology.

The main characters are Will, Henry, Beanpole and Fritz who are all young men who question the practice of capping and the presence of the Tripods - giant three-legged machines that enforce the capping and are worshipped by some and feared by the uncapped. These characters head off for the White Mountains (actually the Alps) where free men are rumored to live. Eventually the series focuses on the struggle of the free men (as they begin to recover some of mankind's lost knowledge and technology) versus the Masters.

During the boys' travels we get to see the author's vision of a destroyed world, especially Europe, and how mankind reacts to the imposed (brain-robbing) peace and harmony of the Masters. The Masters are truly alien - we have very little concept of their motivation, how their bodies work, their technology or their society. These are not your garden-variety Star Trek humanoid-style aliens, and I think that it one of its great strengths.

Later, Christopher wrote a prequel called When the Tripods Came. You may click on the TRIPODS or John Christopher tag below to see my review of that book.

I give this trilogy 5 stars out of 5.

This series can be found on Amazon.com here: The Tripods Trilogy.

Reviewed on June 9, 2006.

When the Tripods Came by John Christopher

Solid Prequel.

Published in 1988.

When the Tripods Came is a prequel to the YA sci-fi trilogy known as the Tripods Trilogy. In the original trilogy, an alien master race rules the earth around the year 2100. The aliens are never seen and travel the world in giant tripods with prehensile legs (I often think of the Tripods when I see water towers in small towns). The aliens use mind control techniques to control the human population which lives in a low tech feudal type society. Every year young people are brought to the Tripods to be "capped" - a process that involves having a metallic cap attached to the skull that facilitates the control of humanity.

John Christopher
(1922-2012)

The original series was published in 1967 and 1968. The prequel was published in 1988. The prequel tells how humanity first encountered the Tripods when the Tripods landed on earth and seemed bent on destruction. The Tripods were quickly defeated militarily so the aliens pulled back and began using cartoon shows and pop music as a cover to deliver mind controlling messages. Soon enough, there are fights among those that have been mesmerized and everyone else. The mesmerized people attempt to cap everyone and the stage is set for the world that exists in the Tripod Trilogy, including the placid villages of those that are capped and the remote locations of those that continue to resist.

Comic Book Guy

The author, John Christopher (a pseudonym for Christopher Samuel Youd) says in the preface that he wanted to clarify how the world came to be as it was when the Tripod Trilogy began because so many sci-fi fans (I imagine them as British versions of the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons) were critical of the technology that is described in the book and if this would have been enough to have overcome modern human technology. They were not considering that the level of technology in human history is rapidly advancing and even accelerating, so Christopher felt he had to justify it in some way.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5 and it can be found here: When the Tripods Came.

Reviewed October 22, 2010.