The second volume of the Tripods trilogy follows the original protagonist Will, and fellow rebel Fritz on a dangerous adventure into the city of the Masters, for whom the Tripods are mere vehicles, where he must curb his impetuosity to successfully spy out the secrets that may enable the remaining uncapped and uncontrolled human rebels to succeed in freeing the earth from their domination. Enjoyable to re-read as an adult, with the characters (human and alien) driving the story. ( )

This review was also posted here - https://cavetothecross.com/blog/tripods-the-city/

The second book in the series expands the story and reveals some of the secrets kept in the first book. While not planned as part of a series, the first was such a hit (along with a TV series in the UK) that the author produced two sequels and a prequel. An interesting note in the preface is that even though called The Tripods series, the author didn't realize he had "borrowed" the tripods' design from Well's War of the Worlds alien craft until it was about to be published. I don't really buy this story but I also don't see what the big deal with it would be. Call it an homage to how creepy the tripods are!

Another thing the sequel does that could be said to be a negative was reveal a lot of the hidden details from the first book. Are the tripods alien in origin or are they sentient mechanical machines or are there men inside? What do the caps do and to what extent do the tripods have in contact with them? How was Earth conquered and when? A lot of the details are fleshed out that the reader may have enjoyed not knowing.

But if you want to jaunt on then the book picks up almost at the end of the first book. Will and company are still in focus and they're training for some the games that are used by humanity to see who will go into the Tripods' city and serve them. A small group of rebels will go in under disguise in hopes of gathering intelligence for the rebels to use. So the three characters need to be chosen by the rebels to represent in the games, then they have to win the games, then they have to get into the city, and then they have to survive and get out and back to the rebels. So obviously there is no drama or action that will be had.

No spoilers here of course. The plot moves along well and for a Young Adult Novel, it's interesting to see the pacing for something written in the 1970s vs today. The pacing is done well again and with the usual action, tension, and release that lends to a good read. There are setbacks and hurdles both physical and psychological that must be overcome or faced. That's another good part of the book, especially one from a first-person point of view, our main character Will is starting to see his youthful faults and he struggles to try and overcome them. The character growth follows the main plot of espionage in an interesting way that parallels each other and plays into both parts of storytelling. There are areas where one may feel like an exposition dump is happening but the setup for it is plot specific so there's no, "As you know..." happening here.

Just an aside, there's one element to the story that made me shudder thinking back to my reading of Octavia Bulter's "Dawn" book which I thought was one of the worst sci-fi books I've ever read. While I don't believe the sexual aspect of that is to be conveyed here (and thus safe for youth to read) it was a scary feeling that I might have to relive the trauma of reading that story again.

For those wishing to want more details to the mysteries and continuing the story of Will and his rebellion against the Tripods, I believe this will be enjoyed. Final Grade - B+ ( )

I'm going to go ahead and give this one four stars, if only for the moral complexity in some of the situations and the protagonist's decisions. Sure, things get more outlandish here, but the sci-fi concepts are sound and a whole lot of fun in very British way.

This is sci-fi literature (like, real literature) for younger readers. Again, I wish I'd been aware of these around the time I was reading A Wrinkle in Time.
( )

Will Parker es ahora miembro del grupo de hombres libres dedicados a la lucha contra los Amos. Junto con otros dos compañeros, Fritz y Larguirucho, tiene que encargarse de una peligrosa misión: penetrar en una de las Ciudades del enemigo y conseguir toda la información posible y útil para preparar un ataque. Sus aventuras durante el largo viaje y las arriesgadas situaciones vividas al servicio de los Amos, extraños seres que precisan de una gravedad muy superior a la terrestre para sobrevivir y parecen destinados -como la Gran Raza de Lovecraft- a dominar una tierra en decadencia desde sus increíbles y gigantescas Ciudades doradas, se nos presenta en una clave fantástica sorprendentemente verosímil, que enlaza con la tradición de las utopías sociales más pesimistas y, al mismo tiempo, con la eterna toma de conciencia frente a la colonización y la esclavitud.

review of
John Christopher's The City of Gold and Lead
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 9-13, 2020

This QUARANTYRANNY has really fucked my life up. Just sayin'. It's October & this is only the 13th review I've written so far this year. Compare that to 2018 when I wrote 77 reviews. Even writing this relatively simple one seems like a practically insurmountable task.

ANYWAY, this book is the 2nd in a series, a trilogy at 1st. I reviewed the beginning already, The White Mountains ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3574662360 ) so I won't go into how the premise of this series is that the Martians in H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds won - although that's not explained anywhere in these Christopher books. When I read these I thought I might not've read anything by Christopher before but, Lo & Behold!, I'd read his The Possessors in a book club edition that a door-to-door salesman convinced me to subscribe to when I was a young'un & I'm glad I did! Anyway, that was over 50 yrs ago so I don't remember The Possessors for shit.

On the back of this edition it lists this & 2 other bks as a trilogy but it doesn't give a name to the trilogy. Odd. I've since learned that they're called The Tripods & that the 1st 2 bks were the basis for a SciFi TV series in the UK in the 1980s. 1st I've heard of that. AND there was a prequel-sequel written 20 yrs after the 3rd part of the trilogy. There you go, everything you ever needed to know.

Plunging right in, out heros meet an uncapped, i.e.: non-mind-controlled, stranger on an island.

"And where the silver band of the Cap should have been there was only flesh, toughened and browned by long years of exposure.

"He spoke in German, in a harsh dialect. He had been looking out and had seen us struggling in the water, and had watched Beanpole haul me in to shore. His manner was odd, I thought—part grudging and part welcoming." - p 61

It's funny, literally every stranger I've ever met on an island has been uncapped. There's something to be said for that.

Our heroes take on the task of entering the city where the tripods & their inhabitants live by accepting their abduction as slaves.

"What happened as our Tripod entered the City was something for which I was completely unprepared. I felt as though I had been struck a savage blow that contrived to hit me in every part of my body at the same time, a blow from the front, from behind, most of all from above, smashing me down." - p 97

The Tripod operators, the extra-terrestrial invaders & colonizers have apparently recreated the stronger gravity that they're accustomed to. What might be strange to some of us about this is that usually when Earthlings are depicted in SciFi as going to other celestial bodies that have lighter gravity the Earthlings enjoy the liberation, the increased speed, the greater jumps & only have the slacking of their muscles to fear. What's wrong with these danged ETs? Why aren't they frolicking in Earth's lesser gravity?! Some people just don't know how to have a good time.

""Humans, you have the privilege, the high honor, to have been chosen as servants of the Masters. Go where the blue light shines. In the place to which it leads you, you will find fellow slaves who will instruct you in what you are at do. Follow the blue light."" - p 100

But what if they had on their BLUBlox?

As if slavery isn't bad enough, slavery under increased gravity really bites.

"The remnants of pride broke through the heavy dullness of his voice. He said, "I won the thousand-meters race at the Games, less than a month after I was Capped. No one had ever done that before in my province."

"I stared at him, at the slumped tired body, the worn, sick-looking flesh, with horror. He was no more than two years older than I was, perhaps less." - p 103

Yes, I can see it now, the remake in 10 yrs:

"The remnants of pride broke through the heavy dullness of his voice. He said, "I won the Virtual Reality Olympics at the Zoom Conference, less than a month after I put on the mask permanently & self-quarantined. No one had ever done that before in my province."

"I stared at him, at the slumped tired body, the worn, sick-looking flesh, with horror. He was no less than fifty years younger than I was, perhaps even younger than that."

"I sensed rather than heard it at first, but it grew into a ripple of sound, spread along the cubicles to my right—a sound of awe and wonder. I knew then that the moment had come, and craned my neck to see. They had entered the room from the far end, and were approaching the cubicles. The" [Vaccinators] - p 109

Slavery takes its toll.

"We had all lost weight, but he, who had been tall and well built, seemed, in proportion, to have lost much more than I. His ribs showed painfully through the flesh of his chest, and his face was gaunt. He had the stooped posture that one saw in those who had been a year or more in the City. I saw something else, too, with horror: a pattern of angry marks across his back. I knew that some of the Masters beat their human servants for carelessness or stupidity, using a thing like a fly whisk, which burned the flesh where it touched. But Fritz was not stupid and would not be careless." - p 127

What's perhaps most marvelous about these stories is that the ET conquerors used television to "make men's minds receptive" before the invasion. Gee, the reviewer asks innocently, cd something like that be happening now?

"And they caught the rabbits with the ancients' own marvel: the distance-pictures. These pictures were sent out on invisible rays through the air, and turned back into pictures in millions fo homes all over the world. The Masters found a means of suppressing those rays at their source, and sending out in their place rays that made the pictures they wanted. There went with them other rays that made men's minds receptive. So they watched the pictures, and the pictures told them to go to sleep. When they had gone to sleep, the pictures gave them their orders." - pp 152-153

WAKE UP BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!, y'know what I mean? In my review of the 1st bk of this trilogy, I made a pun about a "mar-riage", a "marred horse". That was a writerly touch preparing you for the following:

"She was dressed in the simple dark-blue gown, trimmed with white lace, that she had worn at the tournament, when the forest of swords flashed silver in the sun, and all the knights acclaimed her as their Queen. Her brown eyes were closed, but the ivory of her small oval face was delicately flushed with rose. But for the casket, very much like a coffin, and the hundreds of others around her, I could have thought she was sleeping." - p 163

Sometimes I think the people around me are sleeping too.. but, no, they're dead. You've heard of "Teacher's Pet"? Well, my 5th grade teacher had little boy teacher's pets. He turned out to be a pedophile.

"Matters were not helped by the fact that the Master became more and more obviously attached to me. His fondling of me, occasional at first, became a daily ritual, and I was pressed into doing something of the sort in return." - p 166

Stay tuned for my exciting review of the final bk of the trilogy! If I can ever muster the energy or enthusiasm to write it, i.e.. ( )