John Christopher

John Christopher
John Christopher
Born	Christopher Samuel Youd; 16 April 1922; Huyton, Lancashire, England
Died	3 February 2012 (aged 89); Bath, Somerset, England
Pen name	John Christopher (science fiction), several others
Occupation	Writer
Alma mater	Peter Symonds College
Genre	Science fiction
Notable works	The Death of Grass; The Tripods; The Guardians;
Notable awards	Guardian Prize ; 1971 ;

Sam Youd (16 April 1922 – 3 February 2012) was a British writer best known for science fiction written under the name of John Christopher, including the novels The Death of Grass, The Possessors, and the young-adult novel series The Tripods. He won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 1971^[1] and the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1976.

Youd also wrote under variations of his own name and under the pseudonyms Stanley Winchester, Hilary Ford, William Godfrey, William Vine, Peter Graaf, Peter Nichols, and Anthony Rye.^[2]^[3]

Biography

Sam Youd was born in Huyton, Lancashire (though Youd is an old Cheshire surname). Youd was educated at Peter Symonds' School in Winchester, Hampshire, then served in the Royal Corps of Signals from 1941 to 1946. A scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation made it possible for him to pursue a writing career, beginning with The Winter Swan (Dennis Dobson, 1949), published under the name Christopher Youd. He wrote science fiction short stories as John Christopher from 1951,^[2] and his first book under that name was The Twenty-Second Century, a collection of science fiction stories; a few of the stories included had first appeared in magazines under the name Sam Youd. His first science fiction novel, Year of the Comet, was published by Michael Joseph in 1955, also under the name John Christopher.^[2] His second novel under the Christopher pseudonym, The Death of Grass (Michael Joseph, 1956) was Youd's first major success as a writer. It was published in the United States the following year as No Blade of Grass (Simon & Schuster, 1957). An American magazine published Year of the Comet later that year and it was issued in 1959 as an Avon paperback entitled Planet in Peril.^[2] Youd continued to use the pen name John Christopher for the majority of his writing and all of his science fiction .^[2] The Death of Grass has been reissued many times, most recently in the Penguin Modern Classics (2009).^[2]

In 1966 Youd started writing science fiction for adolescents, using the name John Christopher in every case. The Tripods trilogy (1967–68), The Lotus Caves (1969), The Guardians (1970) and the Sword of the Spirits trilogy (1971–72) were all well received. He won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for The Guardians.^[1] In 1976 he won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, youth fiction category, for the same novel in its German translation, Die Wächter.

In 1946 he married Joyce Fairbairn, with whom he had five children (one son and four daughters). He divorced in 1978, marrying Jessica Ball.^[4]

Youd lived for many years in Rye, East Sussex and died in Bath, Somerset, on 3 February 2012, of complications from bladder cancer.^[5]^[6]

Film and television adaptations

The Death of Grass was adapted as a film by Cornel Wilde under its American title, No Blade of Grass (1970). The Tripods was partially developed into a British TV series. Empty World was developed into a 1987 TV movie in Germany, Leere Welt. The Guardians was made into a 1986 TV series in Germany, Die Wächter. The Lotus Caves was in development in 2007 as a film from Walden Media, to have been directed by Rpin Suwannath.^[7]^[8] Later, in 2013, a TV pilot based loosely on The Lotus Caves was developed by Bryan Fuller and titled High Moon. The pilot did not get picked up as a series, but was released on SyFy and Netflix in 2014.

Bibliography

Except where stated otherwise, all items listed are novels or novellas published as books.

Christopher's novel The Year of the Comet saw its first U.S. publication in the August 1957 issue of Satellite Science Fiction

Christopher's novella "A World of Slaves" was the cover story on the March 1959 issue of Satellite Science Fiction