Book Review – The Tripods – The City Of Gold And Lead By John Christopher

Rebellion
The second book in the series expands the story and reveals some of the secrets kept in the first book. While not planned as part of a series, the first was such a hit (along with a TV series in the UK) that the author produced two sequels and a prequel. An interesting note in the preface is that even though called The Tripods series, the author didn’t realize he had “borrowed” the tripods’ design from Well’s War of the Worlds alien craft until it was about to be published. I don’t really buy this story but I also don’t see what the big deal with it would be. Call it an homage to how creepy the tripods are!

Another thing the sequel does that could be said to be a negative was reveal a lot of the hidden details from the first book. Are the tripods alien in origin or are they sentient mechanical machines or are there men inside? What do the caps do and to what extent do the tripods have in contact with them? How was Earth conquered and when? A lot of the details are fleshed out that the reader may have enjoyed not knowing.

We Are Not Alone
But if you want to jaunt on then the book picks up almost at the end of the first book. Will and company are still in focus and they’re training for some the games that are used by humanity to see who will go into the Tripods’ city and serve them. A small group of rebels will go in under disguise in hopes of gathering intelligence for the rebels to use. So the three characters need to be chosen by the rebels to represent in the games, then they have to win the games, then they have to get into the city, and then they have to survive and get out and back to the rebels. So obviously there is no drama or action that will be had.

A Plan Afoot
No spoilers here of course. The plot moves along well and for a Young Adult Novel, it’s interesting to see the pacing for something written in the 1970s vs today. The pacing is done well again and with the usual action, tension, and release that lends to a good read. There are setbacks and hurdles both physical and psychological that must be overcome or faced. That’s another good part of the book, especially one from a first-person point of view, our main character Will is starting to see his youthful faults and he struggles to try and overcome them. The character growth follows the main plot of espionage in an interesting way that parallels each other and plays into both parts of storytelling. There are areas where one may feel like an exposition dump is happening but the setup for it is plot specific so there’s no, “As you know…” happening here.

Just an aside, there’s one element to the story that made me shudder thinking back to my reading of Octavia Bulter’s “Dawn” book which I thought was one of the worst sci-fi books I’ve ever read. While I don’t believe the sexual aspect of that is to be conveyed here (and thus safe for youth to read) it was a scary feeling that I might have to relive the trauma of reading that story again.

The Spirit Of Man
For those wishing to want more details to the mysteries and continuing the story of Will and his rebellion against the Tripods, I believe this will be enjoyed.