It's odd. I reread the first Tripods book a few days ago, and while it lived up to my memory of it I'd really almost entirely forgotten the sequels. Well, as soon as I read The City of Gold and Lead I began to remember just how nastily creepy it was (and I say that in a good way). It's fascinating like a car crash is fascinating... full of dreadful things and you can see the disaster lurking but it's so morbidly interesting you can't look away.

I always felt that Fritz was the real hero of this book, and his fate gets me every time.