To accompany my interview with Sam Youd, this is an article I wrote in 1999 for Circus 8 on Sam’s best known pen-name, John Christopher, under which he wrote such enduring classics as the Tripods and Sword of the Spirits trilogies and The Death of Grass.
In a review in the Independent newspaper of Brian Aldiss’ autobiography, The Twinkling of an Eye, John Christopher was said to be one of the five ‘most important British science-fiction writers’. Aldiss himself has often spoken of his admiration for John Christopher, describing him in Billion Year Spree as ‘an intelligent and witty man, marvellously equipped as a writer’. One rarely comes across this kind of recognition, which is a great shame as John Christopher, real name Sam Youd, fully deserves it for his important contribution to British science fiction over the last fifty years.
With the release of the BBC Tripods series on DVD and the promise of an Alex Proyas film adaptation, I thought this interview with the trilogy’s prolific author, conducted in 1999, might be of interest. I’d never interviewed anyone before, and found Sam incredibly generous and a true gent.
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