London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1965
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1965
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Book Details:Hardback edition published by Simon and Schuster, New York, 1965. First Edition Sleeve notes:The scene is an Alpine skiing chalet, a small and isolated hotel run by a pleasant English couple. The guests are normal, ordinary holiday-makers. There is perhaps a hint of tension - a married man looks a little too closely at an unattached girl, the children get on the nerves of some childless guests - but this is to be expected in a small hotel. Good weather, good food, skiing and convivial drinking will smooth over the difficulties as they always do. But an avalanche suddenly cuts the chalet off from the surrounding world, and the little group of strangers is faced with the prospect of complete isolation. A child dies under mysterious circumstances. His body disappears. Is he really dead? He must be, for one of the guests is a doctor and examined the body. But is he? One by one, the guests are caught up in a terrifying nightmare - for what is at stake in the beleaguered chalet is not just their own existence, but the very fate of the world. To tell the reader more would cheat him of a unique and gripping experience. Those who have read John Christopher’s previous books will know how skillful and compelling they are. Those who have not should look at the back of this jacket for extracts from the distinguished reviews. Book Source:Peter Stevenson |
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Book Details:Paperback edition published by Sphere Books, London, 1978. Sleeve notes:High on the snow-slopes, the parasite chose its moment and struck . . . It began when a party of British tourists on holiday in a Swiss skiing chalet were cut off by an avalanche. The first shock came when the boy died - or appeared to die. After the shock came the horror as the boy took on a new and grotesque existence. And after the horror came the relentlessly rising tide of fear and ancient, primal panic among those remaining, as the alien and malignant being preyed on them, picking them off one by one . . . Book Source:Terry Jenkins |
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Book Details:Hardback edition published by Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1965. First edition. Sleeve notes:After its weird introduction, John Christopher’s spine-chilling new novel tells an apparently straightforward tale of a group of British guests on holiday in a Swiss skiing chalet. The group pursue their varying interests until one of them, the young son of the Deepings, dies in an accident - but is he dead? Gradually the enthralled reader realises the significance of the author’s introduction, as the creature that is, in some form, the young boy who appeared to have died, takes on a new and horrifying existence - an alien and malignant being preying on the group of people, now isolated by an avalanche, and one by one picking them off … With almost uncanny imagination, this macabre plot about apparently normal people involved in an inexplicable transmutation drives relentlessly to its superb climax. Book Source:Solihull Libraries |
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Book Details:Paperback edition published by Avon Books, New York, 1966. Sleeve notes:They came and conquered! First, THEY possessed the little boy by killing him and returning him to life as an inhuman creature. Then, one by one the vacationers in the Swiss chalet were taken, killed, returned to life, and then THEY were possessed. Book Source:Terry Jenkins |
