Pendulum

3 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
The diverse experiences of three family members before, during, and after a societal breakdown.

Review
I think I've read enough of John Christopher's books now to say with some confidence that he was just better at YA books than he was at adult ones. Pendulum, much like A Wrinkle in the Skin and The Possessors, is technically well written, but frankly a bit dull. I read it interleaved with another book, and I honestly kept forgetting I was still in the middle of it – even though I read it within a few days. It's ... fine, but he's addressing very familiar themes – pretty much the same ones he usually wrote about. Interestingly, he wrote Pendulum just before two of my favorite Christopher books – The Lotus Caves and The Prince in Waiting. So it's not a question of growing skill; he was already an established author. It's just that the emotions are so flat throughout, even when terrible things are happening.

To some extent, you could argue that Pendulum is effectively a prequel to The Prince in Waiting – setting up the circumstances that lead to that society – which made it a little more interesting to me. But without that, it's a fairly predictable breakdown of society story with few surprises.

The characters, unfortunately, are more sketched than filled in. The novel is basically a description of the experiences of three family members before and during society's fall. But their motivations are thin – particularly in the case of the one woman, Jane – who's drawn to men who seem to have very few redeeming features. Christopher takes a half-hearted stab at explaining why she sleeps with her boss (and even later suggests that she seduced him), but I didn't find it at all convincing, which makes her sections particularly frustrating. The whole effort feels half-hearted, in fact – as if he had a vague idea and then didn't do much to develop it. It's fine if it's the only Christopher adult book you read, but if you've read others, this one doesn't add anything. And overall, I have to encourage staying with his excellent YA novels, and leaving the more adult and forgettable novels to completionists like me.