A review by seclement
The Death of Grass by John Christopher

4.0

I am amazed that I hadn't read this before now. It is, as the endorsement on the book cover says, remarkably prescient to read at this point in time, nearly 70 years later. I read the book in just a few sittings not just because it is short, but because it is captivating how modern it feels. The main reason for giving it a 4 instead of a 5 is that I wanted to know more about the virus affecting the crops and more about what was happening in the rest of the world. I think he got the behaviour of the countries he did mention mostly right. Although there isn't much outright racism from the characters' dialogue, I will note there were a few comments that will remind you this was written in the 1950s, and you should expect some stereotyping and terminology that we would no longer use. But to be honest he is more scathing of his own countrymen than other countries in this book. This is just the sort of dystopian novel that I would have expected to be talked about more in recent years, alongside Brave New World and 1984. I am shocked they haven't made it into a film in recent years, but perhaps that's because the original attempt to do so in the 70s was such a spectacular failure that even the author said he couldn't watch more than a few minutes. Highly recommend this one, especially if you like dystopian novels. Be warned, though, that this book is more Lord of the Flies than Brave New World and it gets DARK at times.