Young Adult Science Fiction Author John Christopher passes away.

He was the author of the "War against the Tripods" trilogy:

The author John Christopher died in England last Friday, and I'm guessing that most of you have no idea who he was or what he wrote. He wrote an awful lot, in a lot of different genres, under many different names, but I remember him today because of three creased and crinkled used paperbacks of science fiction I stumbled across as a child at the "for sale" carousel at the Reginald P. Dawson Library in Town of Mount Royal, Quebec. I still have the books--35 years later--and have dutifully tried to get my son to read them. Maybe I'll try again now.

The books are The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire and together they comprise what is called the "Tripod Series," named for the shape of the giant aliens who have captured Earth and enslaved the humans at the core of Christopher's narratives. I don't remember much of the details of the books except that a group of young boys were always on the run, part of a resistance to the alien conquerors, in a sort of 1984 meets Red Dawn meets the French Resistance fondue.