The Tripods Collection (Boxed Set): The White Mountains; The City of Gold and Lead; The Pool of Fire; When the Tripods Came

J’avais lu cette trilogie au collège, et récemment (20 ans après…) je me suis rappelée de ces romans et ai souhaité les lire en version originale, étant désormais assez bonne en anglais.L’auteur a su créer un univers cohérent, où les envahisseurs ont obtenu l’asservissement total des humains…ou presque !J’attends avec impatience le film, il parait que c’est prévu.

“The Tripods” is patterned after The War of the Worlds, but given the target audience, it is naturally up to the children to battle the aliens. The invaders with their shadowy intent use devices implanted in the skull to control humans, who appear to have reverted to a medieval agrarian style of life. The children, however, cannot be safely “capped,” and thus have the window of opportunity.Christopher’s achievement here is not so much the now-classic plot, but creation of interesting key characters who unlike most series shift in and out of view from sequel to sequel. The descriptions of the people enslaved by the Tripods contrast with the resistance in a way Christopher might have observed in many an authoritarian state. They are drawn so sharply that I recalled the plot twists and character conflicts 25 years after reading the trilogy.The trilogy? But there are four books? As others note, “When The Tripods Came” is a prequel written long after the others. It is a decent and readable but gratuitous book. Reading it first will undermine from the most compelling storytelling device of “The White Mountains” — its gradual demystifying of what the devil happened to these people and what’s inside those tripod things, from the perspective of children with no memory of technology.Note that this very much a male-driven story. The few females are lightly sketched and far between. Thus the books are a harder sell to girls for lack of connection, but I would encourage the attempt. It might also be worthwhile for children to read or reread the books when they are old enough to appreciate the themes of tyranny and rebellion. (Certainly all teenagers do. :)This boxed set is an excellent buy.

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 ;-).