John Christopher

If you saw the comments to the last post, you’ll note that a mother was looking for Sci-Fi for her 11- year-old son.

I heartily recc’d John Christopher. It would be a shame for a kid to strip straight to adult Sci-Fi and miss Christopher’s books which are probably better than most of the adult sci-fi they’ll find.

A great place to start is The White Mountains, which beings the Tripod series. (A prequel appeared later, but I’ve never read it.) Tripods have taken over the earth and only a few people aren’t mind-controlled pawns. It’s impossible to survive, much less overthrow the masters. And yet …

There’s a lot of mindblowing stuff in here, but there’s also a great portrait of a friendship, which is one of Christopher’s specialties.

In the Prince in Waiting series, he paints a rather ugly portrait of a friendship and it’s all the more worth reading for that reason. This is a greatpost-apocalyptic story. Simply fantastic.

If you just want a single, sci-fi blowout, go for The Lotus Caves. Growing up in a moon base is boring! So let’s steal a moon buggy and go joyriding!

But this lunar joyride leads to some pretty far-out stuff.

These are books for kids who think! Andthey’re smart enough for adults to get caught up in, too.

NOTE: NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH MATT “The Loneliest Tailback” CHRISTOPHER…