Christopher Samuel Youd, who wrote sf as John Christopher, died 3 February 2012. Born in Lancashire, UK, on 16 April 1922, he also wrote under a variety of pseudonyms, including Stanley Winchester, Hilary Ford, William Godfrey, William Vine, Peter Graaf, Peter Nichols, and Anthony Rye.
He served in World War II, in the Royal Corps of Signals. After the war, he won a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation, which allowed him to pursue a writing career, although he had actually started publishing earlier: his poem “Dreamer” appeared in Weird Tales in March 1941, under the byline C.S. Youd. After the war, his “Christmas Tree” appeared in Astounding in February 1949, under the byline Christopher Youd. His first novel was The Winter Swan (fantasy), which appeared in 1949.
His first sf novel, The Year of the Comet, appeared in 1955. He will be remembered for his next sf novel, The Death of Grass (1956), which appeared in the US as No Blade of Grass, and which was made into a feature film in 1970 (under the US title) directed by Cornel Wilde and starring Nigel Davenport. In the late 1960s, he wrote the YA trilogy Tripods, which includes The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire.
His 1965 story “A Few Kindred Spirits” was a Nebula nominee.
His Encyclopedia of Science Fiction entry his a much fuller bibliography.