Throwback Thursday: John Christopher’s Tripods Series Taught Me to Be a Grownup

Confession time: I was a Boy Scout. Not only that, I was an Eagle Scout, a fact that absolutely amazes people who have met me in real life. Which is…is kind of insulting, now that I think about it. Although when I consider the multiples aspect of the Scout Law I fail to embody in my day-to-day life (the answer is pretty much all of them), I suppose it makes sense.
I mention this not to make you imagine me in a beige uniform and green knee socks—or not solely to make you imagine that (I am proud of my calves)—but because the first time I became aware of John Christopher’s Tripods trilogy (The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, The Pool of Fire, and the published-years-later prequel When the Tripods Came) was through a comic adaptation that was printed in Boy’s Life, the official magazine of the Boy Scouts of America, to which I was dutifully subscribed in the early 1980s.

Written in the late ’60s, in an era where the concept of dark and gritty YA wasn’t even a gleam in the publishing world’s eye, the Tripods books might seem quaint when judged by modern sensibilities. The trilogy opens long after an invading alien horde has enslaved the Earth. The Masters cannot breathe our atmosphere, and must exist inside their Tripods, elegant three-legged monstrosities that recall the stalking exterrestrial army of War of the Worlds, or in the domed cities where they have replicated their native atmosphere.
When human children turn thirteen, they are “capped”—outfitted with a surgically implanted skullcap that allows the Masters to control them. Our heroes, three young boys, grew up in a town in which all of the adults are under alien control (it seems the whole world serves the Masters). On the eve of their own cappings, the friends decide to flee, setting off on an adventure through Europe, eventually joining up with a resistance movement and infiltrating one of the Masters’ domed cities. They pose as slaves, living among the obedient human populace while plotting to wrest control away from their overlords.

Thirty-odd years later, the books still stand up, and seem, more than anything, to have predicted The Hunger Games and so many other teen-against-tyrant franchises we enjoy today. Two things in particular stick with me: The kids-as-protagonists setup is presented in a straightforward manner, free from the “chosen” nonsense that mars some of the modern-day examples of this particular subgenre. There’s likewise no hint that kids are superior to adults—the responsibility to save the world falls on them only because they are among the few who have yet to be enslaved. The story showed me kids my own age who were smart and self-reliant, who didn’t need magical talismans, super technology, or mutant powers in order to have incredible adventures.
Second, Christopher, at the end, dares to pull back the curtain and not only reveal his aliens, but let you spend a lot of time with them in their domed city, where we learn that a few of them regard their human slaves more or less like pets—some are downright affectionate. Revealing so much of his otherworldly antagonists could have driven the book into a wall, but Christopher turns into the skid, using his exploration of their culture to deepen the story, establish how firmly in control the Masters are, and underscore the thrilling risks the kids take in joining resistance.
For a kid in tan shorts and green knee socks, preoccupied with earning merit badges, that was some serious literary kung fu.