The premise of both book and series is not an unfamiliar one. Onscreen and in real life, it began in late summer, but was swiftly subsumed by lengthening shadows, gathering mists and a bit of lingering resentment that it had stolen Doctor Who‘s slot. The White Mountains was famously adapted into BBC1’s high-profile 1984 series The Tripods, a show that has always felt decidedly autumnal to me.
But the existence of both – offering tantalising refuge and dire peril respectively – overshadow and drive the events of this languidly atmospheric novel. Even the Tripods themselves are restricted to sinister cameos. Actual white mountains, for a start, are at a premium, only fleetingly glimpsed at the book’s conclusion. If the most potent elements of a creative work are those left unseen and unstated, then The White Mountains – the first of John Christopher’s Tripods trilogy – should be dangerously intoxicating.
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