Zachary Adams

Zach
2/20/11
IRBR

I think that the Science-Fiction novel The White Mountains by John Christopher is a great book and one of the best in its genre. The book The White Mountains is by John Christopher, which is a pseudonym (fake name) for Samuel Youd.
The White Mountains is about a world that was taken over by giant machines that have three legs and are called Tripods. The way Tripods rule is by implanting metal mesh in everybody’s head’s which most people refer to as being capped. Every body get’s capped at the age of fourteen. There is a boy named Will who is best friends with his cousin Jack. But then Jack gets capped and starts to act very strange around Will which makes him think that being capped is not a good thing at all. Soon afterwards a man named Ozymandias comes to the village that Will lives in and offers him a map to a place called The White Mountains where people can live without being under the rule of the Tripods. Will escapes but so does his cousin Henry who follows him immediately. They encounter some trouble and eventually get captured and then released by a young boy named Jean-Paul but they nicknamed him Beanpole for being so tall and skinny. Finally they get within sight of the White Mountains only to be intercepted by a Tripod which after much battling they kill. They soon make it to the mountains and are congratulated for being the first people ever to kill a Tripod. The White Mountains is set throughout England from Will’s small village all the way to the mountains.
The novel The White Mountains is heavily science-fiction and I think this is because of the fact that it is set in the future, there are aliens, metal mind control caps and plenty of other things that makes it fall under the genre of science-fiction. This book is a good example of science fiction because of the way that the author can make it sound like it could be happening right now but is actually completely fictional.
This book is very good, with not much to improve on other than adding a little bit more detail on the parts where Will, Henry and Beanpole are traveling to the White Mountains which takes up much of the book. Also including more of their adventures while in the city of the Ancients, like finding more interesting stuff from that time period.
I think this book is one of the best in John Christopher’s series the Tripods, of which I have read all four. I think this because it is more of how people get away from them and how people who escaped from being capped get to the White Mountains. This is also definitely the best science fiction novel I have ever read, and I have read quite a few.
Overall I think The White Mountains is a very good novel and I would definitely recommend it to most everybody. Why I think people should read this is because it has a great plot, interesting characters and just leaves you wondering what will happen next. There are two sequels to this called The City of Gold And Lead, and The Pool of Fire. Also there is a prequel explaining how the tripods came, titled When the Tripods Came. People who would most enjoy this are people at least above ten years old who are into Science-Fiction.