The SYLE Press

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):

Photo of a book cover on a bookshelf in a charity shop: A Wrinkle in the Skin by John Christopher (AKA Sam Youd) - painted cover of two grounded/wrecked passenger jets on a ruined airport.

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...

The Prince In Waiting by John Christopher – stylised cover in reds and greens with soldiers in armour before a walled city with a head on a spike over its gate

Radio Times September 1984 cover – The Tripods Are Coming, with towering metal Tripod travel machine

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

Tripodscast - Exploring The Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher. Episode 10: The Worlds of Sam Youd - 'Heaving bosoms and that kind of thing.' Photo of author Sam Youd, AKA John Christopher, creator of The Tripods Trilogy (amongst many others). He is looking happy, towards the camera.

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

Book page with the following text: She paused for a while. You're the leader, aren't you? The medieval chieftain - you said so yourself?' John shrugged. 'Does that matter? 'It does to you. I see that now. More than our safety and the children's.' He said gently: 'Ann, darling, what are you talking about?' 'Duty. That's it, isn't it? It wasn't really Roger and Olivia, Steve and Spooks, you were thinking about - not them as persons. It was your own honour - the honour of the chieftain. You aren't just a person yourself any longer. You're a figurehead as well.' 'Tomorrow it will be all over. We can forget about it all then. ' No. You half convinced me before, but I know better now. You've changed and you can't change back.' ‘I've not changed.' ‘When you're King of Blind Gill, she said, how long will it be, I wonder, before they make a crown for you?'

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.”

Puffin paperback edition of The Prince in Waiting. The cover shows a young man standing at Stonehenge. Beside the book is a pottery model of a tower with battlements.

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.

Cover from the Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper. A spooky character on an evil looking horse rears above a young boy in a doorway.

Covers from the Sword and the Spirits Trilogy by John Christopher. Post-apocalyptic Arthurian hijinks, radiation, and a giant rolling amoeboid monster that haunts my present day bestiaries.

Cover image from "Exiles of Colsec", plucky teens again, this time the alien colonizers is us.

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

Last book I finished, When the Tripods Came by John Christopher (2 boys running from alien tripods)

Last book added to my TBR, The Prince in Waiting trilogy by John Christopher (man holding gun, in front of woman)

Last book I bought. Swallowtail and Sword by H. Leighton Dickson (photo of sword handle and butterfly)

Currently Reading. Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue by W.J. Burley (photo of Inspector Wycliffe)

#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

Tripodscast - Exploring The Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher. Episode 1: The White Mountains. Now a thrilling podcast series! Main image is a photo of three lead characters dressed like yokels from the 19th Century. They are teenage boys smiling towards the camera, left-right: Will Parker (John Shackley), Henry Parker (Jim Baker), Bean-Pole (Ceri Seel).

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

Book cover. The City of Gold and Lead by John Christopher (Tripods #2)

Book cover. The Pool of Fire by John Christopher (boy in balloon) (Tripods #3)

Book cover. When the Tripods Came by John Christopher (two boys running from Tripods) (Tripods 0.5)

Book cover. The White Mountains by John Christopher (Three boys running) (Tripods #1)

💙📚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

Book cover for Penguin Modern Classics edition of The Death of Grass , a dark close up of dankly filmed grass blades.

Quote from book, Ann is reading a letter from her farmer brother in law. It reads: 'This bit at the end,' Ann said. She quoted: In a way, I think I feel it would be more right for the virus to win, anyway. For years now, we've treated the land as though it were a piggy-bank, to be raided. And the land, after all, is life itself.'

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]

Tripodscast - Exploring The Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher. Episode 1: The White Mountains. Now a thrilling podcast series! Main image is a photo of three lead characters dressed like yokels from the 19th Century. They are teenage boys smiling towards the camera, left-right: Will Parker (John Shackley), Henry Parker (Jim Baker), Bean-Pole (Ceri Seel).

Tripodscast - Exploring The Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher. Episode 5 - Part One: BBC TV Adaptation: First Series - 'Giant Pork Pies!' Main image photo is 6 teens/young adults dressed in the worst/excessive 80s, chic/punk fashions. They look like rejects from an 80s Duran Duran music video.

Tripodscast - Exploring The Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher. Episode 7 Part One: The Cancellation! 'Bazooka'd' Image is BBC TV Centre with a giant red alien Tripod with large laser cannons on it's sides, looming besides it. There is smoke and fire beneath the Tripod. (A silver Tripod is behind in the distance). In the foreground is a smiling Jonathan Powell holding a smoking rocket launcher, and a fresh rocket of some kind in his other hand.

Tripodscast - Exploring The Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher. Episode 10: The Worlds of Sam Youd - 'Heaving bosoms and that kind of thing.' Photo of author Sam Youd, AKA John Christopher, creator of The Tripods Trilogy (amongst many others). He is looking happy, towards the camera.

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

Cover for The White Mountains by John Christopher

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