Customer Reviews

The Possessors

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I can't understand why John Christopher isn't better known. Since discovering him in the last few months, I've searched for and read everything I could find. His best books should have made him as well-known as some of his contemporaries like Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury.

This book is one of his best. A group of people snowed in to a small resort while something alien takes them, one by one. There are moments that frighten as well as a movie. The story builds with a quiet suspense, just under the surface, and pays off with a plausible, strong ending.

I like gory, flashy Stephen King novels a lot. But John Christopher's English, stoic, thoughtful horror/science fiction is a great change of pace. This one will stay with me for a long time.

Other great John Christopher books include No Blade of Grass, if you can find it, and Wrinkle in the Skin.

I have never read this book for myself. My father read this story to my brothers and I when we were younger. I cannot stress to you the profound impact this book has had upon me. The fear that John Christopher creates, the very fight for ones own identity is gripping and terrifying. To think that these possessors can take all that you are and shut it away so powerfully that nothing you do can change that, or unlock it, or ever communicate outside of yourself again, is one of them ost frightening concepts that I have ever seen or heard in printed page or word.

John Christopher creates believable characters, not all of them very nice people. As they try and cope with the horror that descends upon them, one cannot help but iagine that you ytourself are transported to that Swiss Chalet, cut off from all humanity, from all aid. And there are people out there waiting to take you. I have found this book in my thoughts and in my dreams many times. This is not one that will ever leave you once yo have read it. It is truly unforgettable. It will possess you too.

Do not read this book unless you are willing to change yourself forever.

I read this book for the first time when I was a teenager and I have been looking for a copy of my own ever since (I had forgotten the title and finally tracked it down). The story with its vivid characters has stayed with me for thirty years. The author made me feel as though I was in the lodge with the trapped guests and staff, feeling the dread they feel, sharing their helplessness. Find this book and read it!!

yes yes I know i rate a lot of stuff highly. The thing is I bought these BECAUSE I had already read them and loved them. This one gave me gooseflesh. I think of this book whenever I see snow now. Fun stuff.

This novel creeps up on you. It's rather a take on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and has somewhat the feel of an sf B-movie. In other words, it's flawed but frightful fun. Some of the usual tropes: a snowed-in group of ski vacationers; a kid who finds something in the snow, drops dead, then miraculously revives... but changed; the one-by-one recruitment of individuals from the group into becoming like the boy; the slow realization of what is happening; the siege mentality and the need to save the world from this encroachment. Sounds like a lot of sf movies you've seen, doesn't it? Paranoia mixed with an undue confidence in man's ingenuity and resilience. And this book pulls it off with some real chills (pun intended). That's its best characteristic. But the major flaw comes from the characters. First off, the story shifts across the perspective of four of the main characters, thereby losing some of its force. Does it thereby gain in scope? I don't think so. Douglas, the first person we meet, is an utter bore who never rises to the crisis in any meaningful way. As it turns out, none of the characters is very gripping. Rather a dull lot, really. We get inside their heads alright, but yawning all the way. This is a major weakness in the story. I can see that the author may have been correlating the emotional deadness of the people with the total depersonalization effected by the "possessors." There's some art in that. But not much excitement.

I read this book many years ago when I was a teen and remember loving it then. About a year ago my younger brother had purchased the tripod trilogy dvds (The Tripods as it's known, a bbc production I believe) which is based on the four books also written by John Christopher. I watched them and realized suddenly that I had forgotten about all the excellent works John Christopher had so I bought this book, as I seem to remember thinking it was the best one I had ever read outside the Tripod Trilogy.

I anyone was a fan of the "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers" idea this book is for them. The story opens with the near extinction of the Possessors, a race of beings who have no physical bodies of their own except that of a strange blue glowing orb that houses their seed. One of they're seeds floats though space for eons only to arrive on Earth where it waits for more eons encased in ice and snow to be discovered, of course, by a small boy vacationing with his parents in the Alps after an avalanche traps them and several other guests at the local chalet. So one by one the guests, who are trapped and isolated there until the snow is cleared, are possessed by the possessors whose goal is to ultimately take over the whole human race.

John Christopher develops the characters very well in this one I think. The only thing about this book I didn't care for is the amount of seemingly padded scenes that comprised the segments between the action sequences. I realize the author did this for character development, but it was excessive. The other drawback with the book that doesn't hinder the story much is the fact that given the book was written in the 1950's or 60's, and in another country (England I believe) the slang and terms used a lot in the book are harder to understand if one is younger and American or other. That aside, great book for nearly all ages and worth reading if you like classic type science fiction.

An exciting and well written novel even if you're not a fan of science fiction. I really felt like I was holed up in the chalet in the middle of an avalanche with the characters.