No Blade of Grass

Rating:
Summary: One of the best stories of its kind.
Review: No Blade of Grass is story of an agricultural experiment gone totally awry. It attacks all grain like produce(oats, wheat, alphalfa, etc)and kills them without mercy. When the worlds best can't stop it and panic across the world becomes the norm. The story ends up following a group of people who join together to reach a farm in Ireland that grows potatoes, one of the crops not affected by the grass killer. I highly recomend this story for anyone who likes good scifi and human conflict tales. I read this book when I was freshman in high school at the behest of my father. And though I resisted at first I grew to like this book as I contiued to read it. This is a book no personal library should be without,

Rating:
Summary: One of the best stories of its kind.
Review: No Blade of Grass is story of an agricultural experiment gone totally awry. It attacks all grain like produce(oats, wheat, alphalfa, etc)and kills them without mercy. When the worlds best can't stop it and panic across the world becomes the norm. The story ends up following a group of people who join together to reach a farm in Ireland that grows potatoes, one of the crops not affected by the grass killer. I highly recomend this story for anyone who likes good scifi and human conflict tales. I read this book when I was freshman in high school at the behest of my father. And though I resisted at first I grew to like this book as I contiued to read it. This is a book no personal library should be without,

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but doesn't promote a helpful frame of mind
Review: The basic idea of this young adult story is really interesting. A mutant virus has appeared, but it only affects certain plants, not humans or animals. "Well, that doesn't sound so bad," you say? Wrong! The virus destroys all grasses and grains. This not only means brown lawns in the suburbs, but also leads to a total lack of food for cattle and other livestock. Furthermore, it entails a similarly utter lack of wheat and grain, for humans. Within a year, terrible famine spreads throughout the world. Civilization collapses. The few scared, skinny survivors who remain huddle together in isolated valleys, growing rare virus-resistant potatos for food, and fighting off bands of marauding scavengers.

The premise of this story is really intriguing and provocative. However, as usual, John Christopher is too preoccupied with creating extremely brutal, murderous, unnecessarily tough-guy characters. He did this in the Tripod Trilogy, he did it in "The Long Winter," and he does it again here. I personally think that characters like this seem to take up residence in a reader's unconscious mind. For literally years to come, they can provide a feeling of justification for all kinds of mean, evil behavior. Why not write about people who make things work out? Why not focus on the good? Or at least, why not write about the scientific elements of this virus, and a scientific struggle to cure it?

If you'd like to read some nonfiction about this kind of scenario, I'd like to recommend "Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization," by David Keys. That book is about similarly widespread famines, and struggles which the author believes may have taken place during the medieval period. Or, you might wish to read "The New Nuclear Danger," by Dr. Helen Caldicott. Anyway, "No Blade of Grass" is interesting in a way, but it has too much negativity. One thumb partly up.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but doesn't promote a helpful frame of mind
Review: The basic idea of this young adult story is really interesting. A mutant virus has appeared, but it only affects certain plants, not humans or animals. "Well, that doesn't sound so bad," you say? Wrong! The virus destroys all grasses and grains. This not only means brown lawns in the suburbs, but also leads to a total lack of food for cattle and other livestock. Furthermore, it entails a similarly utter lack of wheat and grain, for humans. Within a year, terrible famine spreads throughout the world. Civilization collapses. The few scared, skinny survivors who remain huddle together in isolated valleys, growing rare virus-resistant potatos for food, and fighting off bands of marauding scavengers.

The premise of this story is really intriguing and provocative. However, as usual, John Christopher is too preoccupied with creating extremely brutal, murderous, unnecessarily tough-guy characters. He did this in the Tripod Trilogy, he did it in "The Long Winter," and he does it again here. I personally think that characters like this seem to take up residence in a reader's unconscious mind. For literally years to come, they can provide a feeling of justification for all kinds of mean, evil behavior. Why not write about people who make things work out? Why not focus on the good? Or at least, why not write about the scientific elements of this virus, and a scientific struggle to cure it?

If you'd like to read some nonfiction about this kind of scenario, I'd like to recommend "Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization," by David Keys. That book is about similarly widespread famines, and struggles which the author believes may have taken place during the medieval period. Or, you might wish to read "The New Nuclear Danger," by Dr. Helen Caldicott. Anyway, "No Blade of Grass" is interesting in a way, but it has too much negativity. One thumb partly up.

Rating:
Summary: Good premise, but could've been better written
Review: The idea behind this book is fascinating: how does one country handle a food crisis caused by a virus (in this case the country is China & the virus destroys rice crops)? If & when the virus spreads throughout the world, destroying all grasses & grains, would civilazation survive, or would societies revert back to Middle - Ages brutality?

While I do agree with john Christopher that civilazation will not last very long under these conditions, but I don't gree with his black & white attitude toards the events occuring after civlazation breaks down & each man is out to save himself, & maybe the few people close to him.

Rating:
Summary: THE classic disaster tale minus the special effects
Review: The novel is as brilliant as ever and shares an important place in speculative fiction despite its frequent imitators. This is the book that defined Christopher's reputation for creating believable characters and placing them in precarious situations to the pleasure of the reading public. FIND THIS NOVEL and set it alongside the Tripod Trilogy. You won't find that damned movie, this I can tell you.