When Neil survives a deadly plague and plunges into solitude, he must question everything in this gripping adventure from critically acclaimed Tripods author John Christopher.
Neil’s world is shattered when he and his family are involved in a horrible car accident that leaves him an orphan. He is sent to live in a small village with his grandparents, whom he loves but doesn’t really know.
Soon, a devastating illness, the Calcutta Plague, begins making the headlines. After killing thousands of people in India in just a few months, the disease begins to spread much farther, quickly sweeping across the world and eventually settling in the same village where Neil resides. The sickness is a strange one, affecting only the adults and none of the children, and soon Neil finds himself an orphan once more.
Alone, Neil travels to London in search of other survivors of the plague. There he finds a strange world of fear and suspicion, where friends can be enemies and people will do anything to survive. In this time of strife, amid the excitement and loneliness of his solitude, can Neil find a way to focus on what matters most?
I'm not sure I can call this a 'favourite', so much as 'scared me so much I've never forgotten it', but either way, I've never forgotten it. John Christopher's more famous for The Tripods, but spend any amount of time looking this one up and you'll find plenty of people who remember it.
It's a quick read, less than 140 pages depending on your version. As far as I can find, it's not currently in print, but there are copies out there if you're interested. It's eerily prescient in spots, too, most notably in the illness having a period where the infected are contagious, but symptom free, so people can spread it unknowingly.
This isn't an action packed book. It's a careful, thoughtful, precisely written story, with no word wasted. Christopher can set a scene in very few words and describe an atmosphere so well you can feel it. I vividly remember reading this as a child, setting it aside, and scouring the news for quite some time afterwards to make sure nothing was sneaking up on us.
Of course, you're thinking 'why read this now, with everything that's happening?' It's escapism. This was written in the seventies, and shows it. Neil is isolated in a small town during the worst parts of the plague, but the worst that happens there is that some youths on motorcycles tear up the churchyard one night. No one is injured, no one is attacked, there's nothing of the violence we expect from dystopias nowadays. It's a gentle read, if that can be applied to a book where 99.99999999999recurring percent of the population die.
It's a good read. A quick one. It has a wonderfully eerie atmosphere. But it 's possible the ending will make you throw the book across the room, so watch out for that.
No comments:
Post a Comment