The Pool of Fire

[sawyl]

To John Christopher's final Tripods novel, The Pool of Fire, which charts the inevitable downfall of the alien Masters at the hands of humanity. It's a fair ending to the series, but it suffers from uneven pacing and, as with the other books, a completely male dominated cast; even the sexless aliens — Christopher mentions in his prologue that they propagate through parthenogenesis — are given a very male gloss.

Having survived their investigation of the City of Gold and Lead in the previous book, Will and Fritz find themselves assigned a new task: to travel the world, recruiting teens who have not yet been capped to the cause of the resistance. Having done this for a few years — long enough for Beanpole and his fellow scientists to reinvent the technology of the Ancient World — they return to Germany to assist with the struggle against the Tripods. Following a plan laid down by Julius, the leader of the resistance, they ambush a Tripod and take one of its Masters captive. Through chance they discover a simple way to strike back against the aliens, if only they can get back in to the city.

With Will & Fritz leading the strike against the German city, Henry targeting the one in one in Panama, and others taking the one in the Far East, the resistance hope to take out their enemies in a single strike. The plan largely succeeds, leaving most of the world free, but with America still under the thrall of the Masters. With the aliens expecting the arrival of reinforcements from space, the resistance are unable to rest on their laurels and decide to use aeroplanes and balloons, both newly rediscovered, to destroy the remaining city. Once everything is played out, the unity of the resistance shatters into quibbling nationalistic factions and the book ends with Will, Beanpole, and Fritz — English, French, and German respectively — turning their backs on their plans for a quiet lives in order to build a new political consensus.

A satisfactory conclusion to the series with some good moments of tension, although I'm not entirely sure the opening travelogue adds much. The ambush of the Tripod works well largely because Will's old enemy, the barge captain Ulf, reappears and, through Julius' words and actions, we get to see that he isn't the petty tyrant that Will believes, but an embittered alcoholic who sees in Will the ghosts of his own missed opportunities. The daring raid on the City works well — as in the previous book, Christopher is good at invoking the oppressive atmosphere of the place — but there are some problems with the way the whole scenario plays out.

(The scientist in me can't quite buy into the destruction of the dome — if atmospheric pressure has always been lower in the City as the rush of inward air suggests, why should the simple admission of terrestrial air cause the dome to collapse inwards? And why does the capping program re-establish itself when the Fritz switches the pool of fire back on? And why don't the Panamanian Masters use their ability to control the capped to keep the americas under control?)

Other problems include the total lack of female characters — a Master reading the book would have literally no idea humanity wasn't entirely male — and uncomfortable pacing in places. But it's more action packed than the first book and, if not as evocative as the second, it is a fair end to a series whose principle appeal, if I'm honest, is a nostalgia for the terror I felt when I first saw the TV series...