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Summary: Still lovin' it after 15 years!
Review: My fourth grade teacher read "The White Mountains" to the class, and ever since, I've been hooked on John Christopher's trilogy. I've read these stories more times than I can count, and I never get bored.
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Summary: Great read as teen, great read as an adult
Review: Like many other reviewers, I read this series many moons ago in junior high and like others, became interested in and then a solid devotee of sci-fi. Although my enthusiam for the genre has become a little more tempered over the years (waiting three years for a sequel to come out will do that to you), these books remind me of why I became hooked in the first place: solid story-telling with suspense, interesting characters and a plot that stays with you years later. As time has passed, I've read nearly every major sci-fi/fantasy series to come along in the past two decades, but now find myself revisiting the classics: Lord of the Rings; Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series; A Wrinke in Time, and yes, the Tripod Series. The latter may be a little more obscure but it deserves a great deal of credit for starting many young readers on their journey to years of reading pleasure. I would highly recommend it as a gift to a young reader (while he/she is waiting for the next Harry Potter ;-).
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Summary: The books that sold me on Sci-Fi
Review: I read these books when I was a teenager. I am now on the crusty side of my 30's and they remain as vivid for me now as when I read them. This trilogy is a great adventure story and makes great Science Fiction reading.The world is in ruin, and has been taken over by aliens who have enslaved the people. The job of saving the earth from the aliens falls to a group of young teenagers, because when they become adults everyone is fitted with a mind control device which prevents rebellion. The characters in the story have to escape having the device placed on them. Then they have to travel to the white mountains where the resistance is said to hide. To get there they must make a long and dangerous journey across a continent. I really strongly recommend this trilogy to teenagers and hopefully it will give them the interest in reading that I maintain today.
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Summary: Unfortunately, I saw the show first.....
Review: The three books of the "Tripods" series - "The White Mountains", "The City of Gold and Lead" and "The Pool of Fire", tell of an Earth conquered by an alien race known as the Tripods - three-legged monsters from an aquatic world. Imposing "the cap" on all humans, the Tripods reduce mankind to a pre-industrialized state of complacent servants. Earth of 2086 looks little different from the Earth at 1686. Most people live in cozy towns where, once they're old enough, they are taken by the tripods and fitted with a cap that ensures their obedience. Few live in the ruins of large cities, and only those whose caps don't work right retain a desire to travel (almost a compulsion - they become the future's mentally ill, called vagrants). In "The White Mountains", Will and Henry (the sort of young boys familiar to you if you've read Christopher's "Fireball") are persuaded by a Vagrant called "Ozymandias" to flee their village before their capping day, and join a growing army of "free men" nestled among the White Mountains in Europe. With a map and a fantastic device called a compass, the two boys set off and have many adventures before reaching the Free Men. Near the ruin of Paris, Will and Henry meet Jean-Paul, whom they nickname "Bean-pole". A devotee of science, Beanpole regales Will and Henry with tales of his experiments and legends of the lost age of man's rule over the world. At a chateau, Will falls in love with a French girl...who is then taken by a tripod into its city, a city of gold and lead. It's this heartbreak that drives him to the White Mountains..... In the sequel "The City of Gold and Lead, Will joins other Free Men on an expedition into the Tripods' city, masquerading as a servant. We finally see the tripods in the flesh and have a clue as to their intentions for the Earth. (The Tripods' atmosphere is heavier than ours, but the Tripods themselves don't intend to let stand in the way of escaping the confines of their sealed cities. In the final book, "The Pool of Fire", the Free Men rebound from the loss of their base in the White Mountains to declare war on the Tripods and attack their three cities on Earth. The Tripods' weapons, which were fine when neutralizing the high-tech weaponry of the Earth when first invading, are useless against an emboldened army of free men using more inventive tactics. Victory seems close yet also unimaginable - even if they can defeat the Tripods, the war isn't one until humanity rises above the disunity that made the Tripods' first conquest so easy. Unfortunately, I experienced the Tripods by watching an extended Australian TV miniseries that presented the first two books in half-hour blocks over the course of. Low-tech FX were balanced by the compelling episodes (many ending on cliff-hangers or otherwise engrossing enough to make you wait with baited-breath for the next week's episode), and the length of the show gave the writers the opportunity to flesh-out many plot ideas that Christopher just glances over. Though the action heats up in the last book, "Pool" is actually the least satisfying, with a potentially larger plot being told in a story as thin as those in the other two books. Will, who comes off as slightly anti-heroic in the first books, now seems like just a bystander here. Even the story is told pretty baldly - rushed as if Will was telling it to you in one sitting, as if it's one he'd half think you'd have heard before. The third book's plot itself seems unconvincing - the Free Men take a page from the Trojan Horse to trap a Tripod (literally, the oldest trick in any book). The Tripods themselves never take the offensive after their cities begin to fall. The biggest problem is the post-apocalyptic world. Christopher never really fleshes out how enslaved humanity really is, or debates the point about whether we may not truly be better off under the tripods (we know for sure once we've been inside of their city, but the book never generates much mystery). The world of 2086 is something of an alien world - a reminder of what was once our world, but reduced by the Tripods - both undeniably familiar and completely opposute of eveyrthing we know today.
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Summary: The Tripods Triumph
Review: To some of the first science fiction books I ever read, and definitely the best of the first. I read these books when I was eleven, and now, seven years later, I come back to them to write this review, and read the series yet again. I started the series with When the Tripods Came, and read through home, travel, and school (a habit I still suffer from) until I reached the end. After that I read the other three in order, and my youthful eyes were opened wider to the world of science fiction. These books tell the story of a successful invasion of earth, starting with alien landings in the civilized world. These scouts were quickly destroyed, and the aliens, undaunted, find an insidious method of using our own technology against us. These books are unnofficial classics, and should be read by everyone.
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Summary: Great trilogy
Review: The White Mountains, City of Gold and Lead, and Pool of Fire are absolutely amazing. The plot is interesting and exciting, and the characters well developed. When the Tripods Came was disappointing (I think it was written last, and takes place first--usually a bad idea), but the others are more than good enough to make up for it.
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Summary: A First Encounter with Science Fiction
Review: Before "Dune", before "The Hobbit", before "Stranger in a Strange Land", there was "The Tripod Trilogy." I read these books for the first time over thirty years ago, but they are just as exciting today. It is a wonder that they are not more well-known. Although the characters are mostly male, young girls will enjoy the story as much as boys.Their portrayal of an all-too-possible future is not to be missed. For precocious sixth-graders, and seventh grade through high school.
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Summary: Tripods
Review: When I first got this book I though oh great another boring book assignment.The teacher told us we could read ahead and that we would want to. (yeah right thats gonna happen) But it did!I got so into the book when parts were exciting i wouldnt move or even blink. This book is the only book i really like.
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Summary: a great intro into sci-fi
Review: I found The White Mountains in the school library when I was 8 years old. I had to write a book report and it was the only thing I found interesting. In the ensuing 24 years I have reread it and the two sequels at least a hundred times each. It is as gripping for me today as it was the first time I read it. And it has instilled me with a lifelong love of all things science fiction. I discovered the prequel a few years ago, and although it explains all the questions the original trilogy left you with (like how exactly the Earth was conquered in the first place) for me it paled in comparison to the originals. My advice? Read When the Tripods Came last if you want to experience the Tripod Trilogy as originally published.
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Summary: The White Mountains
Review: When I first laid eyes on The White Mountains by John Christoper, it was nothing but a school assignment, probably just another book. It was, however, not. I can truthfully say that it is probably the most enticing, and thrilling book I've ever read and would reccommend it to just about anyone. When Will, a young boy living on Earth under the rule of the Tripods, a mechanical being who has taken over all of modern civilization, is called upon by the mysterious Ozymandias, to flee to the White Mountains, before he undergoes the capping ceremony, which forfeit his mind, and service to the Tripods for the rest of his life. Through the journey, a band of one rebellious soul turns into three, and there is not a moment when the Tripods are not on the three's, Will, Henry, and Beanpole (Jean-Paul) trail. When Beanpole finds a mysterious remnant of a cap attatched to Will's skin, it seems that all is lost, for the Tripods have secretely been tracking Will and his followers through this remnant. However,the unbreakable ties between the three, are strong as the majority's acceptance of the Tripods, and they will, without a second's thought forfeit their dreams of the White Mountains, where men are free, for the safety of their friend. Only one pivotal question remains, How long will it be until the White Mountains are in sight?
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