Though I usually keep on top of such things, I'd failed to take note of the fact that, last Friday, British author Samuel Youd, better known by his pseudonym of John Christopher,
died at the age of 89 (thanks to reader Daniel Eness for bringing this to my attention). Youd was, of course, most famous for his "Tripod Trilogy," which began with the novel
The White Mountains in 1967, but he had previously written the equally famous
The Death of Grass more than a decade earlier. Both it and the Tripod Trilogy were of a post-apocalyptic nature and, as such, exercised a big influence over my imagination as a younger man. I first learned of the Tripod Trilogy in the pages of
Boys' Life magazine in the early '80s, which serialized the books in comic book form. This led me to seek out the actual books, which I adored (and still do).
Rest in peace, Mr Youd.
