The White Mountains (Paperback)

by John Christopher (Author) "Apart from the one in the church tower, there were five clocks in the village that kept reasonable time, and my father owned one of..." (more)
Key Phrases: The White Mountains, The Tripod, Captain Curtis (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Long Ago, The Tripods -- huge, three-legged machines -- descended upon Earth and took control. People no longer understand automation nor machines, and unquestioningly accept the Tripods' power.

But for a time in each person's life -- in childhood -- he is not a slave. Will still has time to escape. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

John Christopher (Sam Youd) was born in England in April 1922, during an unseasonable snowstorm. His early years were spent in Lancashire and Hampshire. He left school at sixteen to work as a local government clerk until being called up for army service in 1941, and spent the following four and a half years with the Royal Corps of Signals, in Gibraltar, North Africa, Italy, and Austria.

On leaving the army he renewed a teenage ambition toward being a writer, and in 1947, on the basis of an unfinished novel, won an Atlantic Award, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, which enabled him to devote himself to writing for a year. He tried to justify the award by writing serious novels, but subsequently also wrote detective thrillers, light comedies, novels based on cricket, and science fiction, to which he had been passionately devoted in his early teens. After several adult science fiction novels, he was asked to write for the young adult field, and ended up writing sixteen books in that genre, including The Guardians, The Lotus Caves, Dom and Va, Empty World, and the Sword and Fireball trilogies, as well as the Tripods trilogy. Following a BBC television series in 1984 based on the Tripods books, he wrote a prequel, When the Tripods Came, explaining how it all came about.

Sam Youd is a widower with five children and numerous grandchildren, and lives in Rye, in the county of Sussex, England. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: MacMillan Publishing Company; Collier edition (September 1970)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0020427107
• ISBN-13: 978-0020427100
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (113 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,058,747 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 1 in The Tripods Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More frightening than you think, May 1, 2003

By	Peter Vinton Jr. (Not near Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The White Mountains (Tripods) (Paperback)

A masterpiece --I thoroughly enjoyed this book when I was nine and now my eight year-old son is beginning to explore it. Masterful use of setting, dialogue, and rich visual descriptions that at first suggest a quiet English village of the seventeenth, perhaps the early eighteenth century. Then along come the clues: ruined metal buildings, mysterious half-corroded signs, whispered gossip of the craftsmanship of "Men in the Days Before The Tripods." Then the hero's cousin (and best friend) is happily "capped" in a rite of adulthood by a weird and mysterious leviathan straight out of an H.G. Wells novel, and the broader scope pulls into focus.

Christopher's trilogy is exciting, suspenseful, and throws around a lot of mysteries that any preteen reader should be able to reason out without too much difficulty. There is some innocent romance, but no sex. The violence is mostly implied, though there is a disturbing "field surgery" scene towards the end, as well as a nail-biting hunt and a decisive final battle. The heros' actual arrival in the Swiss Alps is somewhat anticlimactic --it sheds no new light on Earth's predicament, but merely brings Will, Henry, and "Beanpole's" quest to an end.

Best moments include the boys' sojourn through "The City of the Ancients," the devastated ruins of what was once Paris. The descriptions from Will's insular point-of-view are a delight to puzzle out, particularly when the boys encounter ordinary everyday twentieth-century objects and try to figure out what they are (i.e., "Shmand-Fair"). The discovery of a cache of explosive "iron eggs" in a subway tunnel paints a broader scope of the initial invasion: it appears there was at least some active resistance before the aliens worked out a way to assume control of human minds.

Buy this for your 8-9-10-11 year-old boy and have some fun reading it to one another. And don't neglect either of the sequels: they bring the story full circle!

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a very good book!, October 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The White Mountains (Tripods) (Paperback)

I had to find a book at our school library for a readingassignment. I hate doing this, because I never find anythinggood. While I was looking for a book, I pulled out "The White Mountains". I looked at the cover and thought it was a cheap rip-off of "War of the Worlds"... But you can't tell a book by its cover! Time ran out, so I picked up that book, and we checked out our books and started to read. I was hooked! I got in trouble several times for reading in class. I kept reading and reading, and when I finally finished, I almost cried! But the next day I went to school I found out it was the first book of a series. I got the next one, "The City of Gold and Lead" and I'm still hooked! Now I've started the 3rd book, "The Pool of Fire." I love it too. I'm not totally sure why I like it... It's just... GOOD! Buy the series! You will love it! I'd give it 6 stars, and I recommend it to all ages.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Science Fiction Book, December 14, 2000

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The White Mountains (Tripods) (Paperback)

When I read The White Mountains I had no clue that it would turn out as good as it did. The suspense was so extreme at times I couldn't put the book down! All the mysteries of the Tripods had you on the edge of your seat. I felt like I was actually there watching the story happen.

The Tripods are Capping people around the world, but the Tripods do not travel into mountains, so the men living in the White Mountains in Switzerland won't have their heads controlled by the Tripods. Will Parker and his friend, Henry, set out for the White Mountains from their small town of Wherton.

On their journey they encounter many obstacles. They don't know who to trust, because anyone can be Capped and obeying the Tripods. If they get caught, they will be Capped and their journey will be over. Will they make it to the White Mountains safely? Read the book to find out!

This book is a great choice for the person who likes a suspenseful adventure book. When you finish The White Mountains, you will want to get The City of Gold and Lead, which is the next book in the series, right away and figure out what happens next. You will LOVE The White Mountains!

This book deserves a great rating. For all of its suspense and how good the adventure was, I think this book deserves a 4.5 star rating. So remember, one of the best Science Fiction books that you can choose is The White Mountains by John Christopher.