Mixed Pickles - the Book log 2012

Nothing like this happens in the book.

The cover looks... ermm... unpreposessing to say the least.  But I am about to go on a bit of a John Christopher jag, with three more of his novels waiting to be read, so I thought I would start with one of his Young Adult novels.

Christopher is one of the unremembered greats of the British SF scene, although if you are in your Forties, or thereabouts, "The Tripods" maybe a children's TV series that lingers in the recesses of your memory.  He sits slightly uncomfortably alongside John Wyndham in the "post-apocalypse" sub-genre but, unlike Wyndham's optimistic view of humanities chance of surviving and restoring "civilisation", his visions are often much bleaker.

"The Guardians" is a prophetic work, set in a britain where class distinctions are much more sharply drawn than they were at the time of writing (around 1970), with the proletariat confinded to the Urban areas, where they are kept employed in blue collar and manual jobs, and entertained by 3-D TV, tribalised sports, and sporadic rioting. The upper classes live in the fenced-off County, enjoying their wealth and engaging in the pastimes of the archetypal aristocracy (hunting, shooting, fishing and meaningless hobbies).

The story tells of a prole boy who escapes into the country, only to meet up with a public schoolboy intent on bringing down society.

Economically told (less than 200 pages long), simple in style, this reads like it should have been an instant classic; perhaps its open ending proved too uncomfortable for its intended audience.

Unputdownability:  Have I reached the end alread?