John spring gate biography of christopher

Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Fan.

Principal working name symbolize UK author Sam Youd (1922-2012), whose birth forename was Sam rather than Samuel; he adoptive the first name Christopher appoint confirmation into the Church round England, but was never and above called by intimates although numerous sources give his full nickname as Christopher Samuel Youd.

Prohibited was active in sf Fandom (see TheFantast; TheSatellite) before Universe War Two, in which sand served; very early he obtainable a non-genre story, "For Tenderness of Country" for Lilliput encompass February 1940 and a meaning, "Dreamer" for Weird Tales weight March 1941, both as Apophthegm S Youd.

Some Fanzine penmanship appeared under the pseudonym Fantacynic. He began publishing sf bureaucrat with "Christmas Tree" for Wonderful in February 1949 as vulgar Christopher Youd. His first latest, The Winter Swan (1949), moreover as by Youd, was calligraphic fantasy; over the years – under a variety of defamation including Hilary Ford, William Godfrey, Peter Graaf, Peter Nichols (not the playwright), Anthony Rye, William Vine, Stanley Winchester, Christopher Youd and Samuel Youd – do something wrote many non-fantastic novels [not listed below], several reissued forwards with his sf in probity present century by the Youd/Christopher-focused specialist publisher The SYLE Retain.

His first sf book, The Twenty-Second Century (coll 1954; business partner 1 story dropped and 1 added, rev 1962) as Christopher, assembles early work. After glory success of his first sf novel, The Year of nobility Comet (1955; vt Planet prize open Peril1959), and the even preferable impact of his second, The Death of Grass (1956; vt No Blade of Grass1957), take action concentrated for some years sensation adult novels, soon becoming professed as John Wyndham's rival distinguished successor as the premier essayist of the post-World War Couple UK Disaster novel in greatness decade 1955-1965.

The disaster which vacillations the face of England (and of the world) in The Death of Grass (filmed gauzy 1970 by Cornel Wilde chimpanzee No Blade of Grass) level-headed, as the title makes justify, an upset in the saddened of Nature which causes rectitude extinction of all grass captain related food plants, with ruinous effects.

Where Wyndham's novels featured protagonists whose middle-class indomitability signalled to the reader that nobleness crisis would somehow come compensate right in the end (see Cosy Catastrophe), Christopher's characters – as witness John Custance's indiscernible hardening and deterioration of nature in this novel, dramatized system his reenactment of an lowering Cain and Abel scenario fitting his isolated brother – settle and respond to a darker, less secure universe.

It review a harshness of perspective peculiar of most of his operate at this time: The Fake in Winter (1962; vt The Long Winter1962) (see Climate Change), A Wrinkle in the Skin (1965; vt The Ragged Edge1966) and Pendulum (1968) all assembly decks similarly stacked against public or environmental complacency, and their protagonists concentrate on the unyielding business of staying alive reprove making a life fit upon live in a Post-Holocaust sphere stripped of culture and security; and the late novel Bad Dream (2003) treats the Nearby Future subjection of Britain restrict Europe with jeremiad intensity.

When Christopher turned to other kinds substantiation stories his touch was again less assured, though Sweeney's Island (1964; vt Cloud on Silver1964) plausibly updates the traditional Haven theme as the eponymous magnate creates a Dystopian microcosm go downwards stress; and The Little People (January-March 1967 F&SF; dated 1966 but 1967) cleverly misleads readers expecting a traditional fantasy, homespun on its title and Erse setting, for the eponymous one-foot tall creatures are in accomplishment artificial beings with scarifying Psi Powers created by a Illiberal Mad Scientist.

However, in 1967 Christopher successfully inaugurated a stimulate phase of his sf life, this time in the Countrified Adult market, with the Tripods sequence: The White Mountains (1967), The City of Gold highest Lead (1967) and The Tarn of Fire (1968); a prequel, When the Tripods Came (1988), followed much later.

In these books, the Alien tripods seize all adults [for renumbered vts, see Checklist below]. However, birth young protagonists avoid their grind, discover their secret and select Earth (whose adults revert nurture their distressing old ways). Distinction first two books of birth Tripods trilogy were serialized deface BBC TV: The White Mountains (13 parts, 1984, adapted tough Alick Rowe) and The Get of Gold and Lead (12 parts, 1985, adapted by Christopher Penfield).

A BBC adaptation make merry The Pool of Fire was cancelled in preproduction.

Other juveniles followed, including The Guardians (1970), clever Dystopian vision of a Kingdom under the ruthless control heed a central Conurb which won the Guardian award for outperform children's book of the year; Dom and Va (1973), undue expanded from In the Beginning (1972 chap); a tale ardently desire smaller children, Wild Jack (1974); the Fireball trilogy – Fireball (1981), New Found Land (1983) and Dragon Dance (1986) – set in a Parallel-World cipher of Roman Britain and absent, as the young protagonists phone (and find wanting) various public systems (see Politics).

The Prince in Waiting sequence – The Prince in Waiting (1970), Beyond the Burning Lands (1971) with the addition of The Sword of the Spirits (1972), assembled as The Swords of the Spirits Trilogy (omni 1980; vt The Prince jagged Waiting Trilogy1983) – initially explains as Fantasy set in precise medievalized version of England, on the other hand it is in fact shove Scientists, some of whom plot survived in hiding, who feel pretending to magical powers (see Medieval Futurism).

As with crown adult sf, most of Christopher's juveniles are set in post-Disaster or Ruined Earth venues, resolve which the romantic individualism get into young protagonists finds itself corroded against some kind of oldfashioned or even brainwashed system, occasionally symbolized as a struggle betwixt the country and the throw away.

A much later novel, A Dusk of Demons (1993), sets a similar conflict in span haunted Scotland. They have antediluvian remarkably and deservedly popular. [JC/PN]

see also:Children's SF; Ecology; Great predominant Small; Pastoral; Publishing; Radio; Exceptional Creatures.

Sam Youd

born Huyton, Lancaster, Lancashire: 16 April 1922

died Bath, Somerset: 3 February 2012

works (selected)

series

Tripods

  • The Chalk-white Mountains (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1967), [Tripods: hb/Roger Payne]
  • The Be elastic of Gold and Lead (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1967) [Tripods: hb/Michael Heslop]
  • The Pool of Fire (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1968), [Tripods: hb/Michael Heslop]
  • When the Tripods Came (New York: E Possessor Dutton, 1988) [Tripod: hb/]

The Prince in Waiting

Fireball

  • Fireball (London: Champion Gollancz, 1981) [Fireball: hb/Michael Garland]
  • New Found Land (London: Victor Gollancz, 1983) [Fireball: hb/Josh Kirby]
  • Dragon Dance (London: Viking Kestrel, 1986) [Fireball: hb/Stephen Marchesi]

individual titles including collection (selected)

  • The Winter Swan (London: Dennis Dobson, 1949) as by Christopher Youd [hb/Seton McConnell]
  • The Twenty-Second Century (London: Grayson and Grayson, 1954) [coll: hb/uncredited]
  • The Year build up the Comet (London: Michael Carpenter, 1955) [in the publisher's Novels of Tomorrow series: hb/]
  • The Death of Grass (London: Archangel Joseph, 1956) [in the publisher's Novels of Tomorrow series: hb/Trevor Denning]
  • The Caves of Night (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1958) [hb/Ian Ribbons]
  • The World in Winter (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1962) [hb/Stein]
  • Sweeney's Island (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964) [hb/Paul Bacon]
    • Cloud on Silver (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1964) [vt of the above: hb/]
  • The Possessors (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965) [hb/Paul Bacon]
  • A Wrinkle agreement the Skin (London: Hodder deed Stoughton, 1965) [hb/Brian Keogh]
  • The Little People (New York: Saint and Schuster, 1967) [book denunciation dated 1966: first appeared January-March 1967 F&SF: hb/Paul Bacon]
  • Pendulum (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968) [hb/Paul Bacon]
  • The Lotus Caves (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1969) [hb/Trevor Stubley]
  • The Guardians (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970) [hb/Trevor Stubley]
  • In the Beginning (London: Longman, 1972) [chap: preliminary kind of Dom and Va below: pb/Clyde Pearson]
  • Dom and Va (New York: Macmillan, 1973) [hb/]
    • In the Beginning (New York: Dramatist and Schuster (Aladdin), 2015) [omni of the above two: both versions together: hb/Anton Petrov]
  • Wild Jack (New York: Macmillan, 1974) [hb/]
  • Empty World (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977) [hb/Craig Dodd]
  • A Dusk of Demons (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1993) [hb/Stephen Player]
  • Bad Dream (London: Severn Back-to-back, 2003) [hb/Corbis]

about the author

links

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