Sam Youd on his friend John Wyndham

John Christopher sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/christ... was born on this day, so here are some of his book covers (artist: Karel Thole, John Griffiths, [uncredited] and Vincent Mahé):

Co-host @selsijohn.bsky.social found a John Christopher in the wild (AKA Sam Youd, author it of The #Tripods series) novel. How many non-Tripods books have you read? We reviewed a selection for our episode dedicated to Sam Youd, with help from @sylepress.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/7gN2...

OTD 1922: Sam Youd (John Christopher) Writer of many dystopian novels, compelling to young me not just for his grim worldbuilding but their sour endings Most famous for The Tripods Trilogy, later a BBC1 series with an infamously (accidentally) bleak ending

If you haven't already, we devoted an episode to Sam Youd, with participation from @sylepress.bsky.social 'Happy Birthday Sam, RIP' anchor.fm/the-tripodscast

The landscape of childhood ...

"William Vine" -- one of SY's more rarely used pen-names

The Death of Grass by John Christopher

Catch-up reading report: (1) Beyond the Burning Lands by John Christopher - bk 2 of a post-apocalyptic study in flawed societies and flawed leadership. (2) Michelangelo by Diane Stanley. A library purchase that intrigued me - children’s biography, thoughtfully written and beautifully illustrated.

“The hours worth numbering, as the sundial says, are happy ones.” Sam Youd (born 16th April 1922)

From SY nature diary (Apr 16) “Woods now bosky as against bare. An overnight explosion of tree colour. ... Drakes and ducks in low over-river chases. Jackdaws and sparrow (?) vying in investigation of hole in Abbey wall. Bright sunshine after cold night -- mist on the marsh.”

Read The Prince in Waiting, the first in the 1970s Sword of the Spirits trilogy by John Christopher. I found book 3 a couple of years ago, and saved it for posterity; I found book 1 last week. Hopefully it won't be many more years until I find 2.

Other purchases from the Scholastic Book Fair that got me drawing:

I read everything I could find by John Christopher in elementary school, then forgot about his existence for years. The “Sword of the Spirits” trilogy is even better than the Tripods books, imo.

1. Nobody told my new teacher I had to have special books. I picked out the prince in waiting trilogy by John Christopher. Hundreds more pages than normal. I then punished my way through more words in a week across a book a day than I had in all my previous years of school.

"This, like everything else, was taken for granted. But no longer by us; having started asking questions, we found that each doubt set loose a score of others." - John Christopher, "The White Mountains", 1967. Between this and "A Winkle in Time", I am LOVING my 1960's YA Sci-fi season.

Sam Youd (John Christopher) definitely covered both ends of the science-fiction / fantasy genre with his adult and YA books. @sylepress.bsky.social

#BookSky Checkpoint 💙📚 The last book you read, the last book you added to your TBR, the last book you bought, and your current read

Sam Youd with Arthur Clarke, 1957

Yes, they do re-read well! One of our co-hosts read The #Tripods novels, and watched the #BBC TV series for the first time. anchor.fm/the-tripodscast

💙📚If you want to introduce your kids to Sci Fi and just great reading you might want to try John Christopher's Tripod books, 4 of them. There were the initial 3 and a later prequel. Excellent series and I believe was also a TV series in the UK. #BlueSkyBooks #Tripods #JohnChristopher

The Death of Grass by John Christopher Great read so far, and so prescient - remarkable that it was out of print ever.

For #worldbookday2025 why not read (or purchase) The #Tripods Trilogy, or any other books by John Christopher/Sam Youd from @sylepress.bsky.social (or Amazon!) (Then listen to our podcast!) #worldbookday

“The hours worth numbering, as the sundial says, are happy ones.” [Sam Youd, 16th April 1922 – 3rd February 2012]

Join us on a journey as a first-time reader/viewer of The Tripods discusses the books, TV show, fandom, and author John Christopher. Along the way the podcast interviews the lead actors, and producer of the BBC TV series, and @sylepress.bsky.social listen at: anchor.fm/the-tripodscast

The Imaginary Museum homes in on the Prince (aka Sword) trilogy mairangibay.blogspot.com/2023/04/sf-l...

"... of the seventeen novels I have written for young readers, my own favourites are those which make up the second [Sword] trilogy" — Sam Youd

20 BOOKS CHALLENGE Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. Day 2 #BookSky 💙📚 #Books #BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

20 didn't cut it! "Choose 20 Books that have stayed with you. One per day for 20 days, no particular order.💙📚 Number 36/20 (Thread!🧵) #Booksky John Christopher "The Pool Of Fire". Placeholder for the "Tripods" series. Christopher (Sam Youd) grew up in my walk-to local town of Huyton.

I like Bluesky very much. it also feels a bit like we're all up in the White Mountains from those John Christopher Tripod books

Kennste? "'The Death of Grass' (deutsch 'Tal des Lebens') is a 1956 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by English author Sam Youd (pen name John Christopher). The plot concerns a virus that kills off grass species, including rice and wheat." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dea...

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. Day 17 #booksky 💙📚 #bookchallenge #books

It's an amazing visual. Have you ever read The White Mountains by John Christopher?(First book in The Tripods series) We read it at school. It has some of these same visuals and is deeply creepy. They are only short books (three novellas if that) but I have never forgotten them.

Thank you to Nicky Smalley for sending me this. He told me that he took this from a dead man.

JC [writing in 1999, before social media] on WHEN THE TRIPODS CAME

“It can babysit your kids, walk your dog.”

JC: “…of the seventeen novels I have written for young readers, my own favourites are those which make up the second [Sword] trilogy.”

In addition to ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’ which a couple of people have already mentioned and which I loved reading at school; I’d also recommend two trilogies by John Christopher suitable for Young Adults: The Tripods and Sword of the Spirits, both had a Puffin issue back in the day.

Yeah I second-guessed putting it that way, but anyway they’re not weird literary JG Ballard apocalypses, they’re compulsively readable stories about small groups of English people grinding through various flavors of societal breakdown.

It seems like a good time to reread The Death of Grass, by John Christopher, first published in the U.S. as No Blade of Grass in 1956. It was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post and illustrated by Earl Mayan. “Pirrie’s small body lay stretched across the camber of the road…”

Book recommendation: The Tripods by John Christopher I re-read these a few years back as a throwback to my childhood. Whilst they are for younger readers, much of the subject matter pulls no punches & it remains an intelligently written scifi series that has held up astonishingly well #booksky 🪐📚💙

THE GUARDIANS -- 1980s TV series (in German). www.amazon.co.uk/Die-W%C3%A4c...

Day 12: The White Mountains, by John Christopher. #bookchallenge #books #booksky

Sam Youd's THE GULL'S KISS came out under the pen name Peter Graaf. But originally written under his own name -- so is this intriguing, dark novel in fact genre fiction (detective, espionage) -- or something else? thesylepress.com/the-gulls-ki...

Scifi novels & audiobooks I have enjoyed recently: Venomous Lumpsucker - Ned Beauman The Mountain in the Sea - Ray Nayler How High We Go In The Dark - Sequoia Nagamatsu Translation State - Ann Leckie (all the Imperial Radch series!) The Tripods books by John Christopher (great revisit on audio)

The sort of novel whose publication in 1965 might well have informed Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis as they gravitated Doctor Who towards ‘base under siege’ stories. Christopher postulates an isolated setting and bleak alien invasion scenario, grimly explored through damaged characters. #ThePossessors

John Christopher is best known as the author of The Tripods book series (later a classic 1980s BBC adaptation). He also squeezed out this bizarre entry in the Nazisploitation genre, THE LITTLE PEOPLE (1966) - psychic S&M Nazi leprechauns in an Irish castle-turned-B&B!

5 writers I've read 5 books each by: 1/ Connie Willis 2/ Terry Pratchett 3/ KJ Parker 4/ John Christopher 5/ Alan Furst (lot more than just those, but,...) 💙📚 , #booksky

The Bagthorpe Saga by Helen Cresswell - Grandma & Daisy are the greatest characters in kids lit. The Burning Lands series by John Christopher - post-apocalyptic fiction with a big reveal about the narrator's character. Terry On The Fence by Bernard Ashley - the scary big kids Had Their Reasons.

Youd interviewed on Wyndham (brief clip, 2005) youtu.be/K9WPP-5jemA?...