The Little People

by John Christopher

Originally Hodder and Stoughton, 1966.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Nazi Party, Halloween

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Samuel Youd was born in Huyton, Lancashire in April 1922, during an unseasonable snowstorm.

As a boy, he was devoted to the newly emergent genre of science-fiction: ‘In the early thirties,’ he later wrote, ‘we knew just enough about the solar system for its possibilities to be a magnet to the imagination.’

Over the following decades, his imagination flowed from science-fiction into general novels, cricket novels, medical novels, gothic romances, detective thrillers, light comedies … In all he published fifty-six novels and a myriad of short stories, under his own name as well as eight different pen-names.

He is perhaps best known as John Christopher, author of the seminal work of speculative fiction, The Death of Grass (today available as a Penguin Classic), and a stream of novels in the genre he pioneered, young adult dystopian fiction, beginning with The Tripods Trilogy.

‘I read somewhere,’ Sam once said, ‘that I have been cited as the greatest serial killer in fictional history, having destroyed civilisation in so many different ways – through famine, freezing, earthquakes, feral youth combined with religious fanaticism, and progeria.’

In an interview towards the end of his life, conversation turned to a recent spate of novels set on Mars and a possible setting for a John Christopher story: strand a group of people in a remote Martian enclave and see what happens.

The Mars aspect, he felt, was irrelevant. ‘What happens between the people,’ he said, ‘that’s the thing I’m interested in.’

Reviews

[Grady Hendrix · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Hector Garrido cover is, unfortunately, the best thing in this book. Despite the Nazi Leprechauns on the cover (Gestapochauns? LepreNazis?) this is a book of quiet horror in which author John Christopher slowly draws his tapestry of flawed characters into a situation that starts out uncanny and then gradually darkens into pure terror. With Leprechauns.

Considering that the main characters in this book are a gorgeous secretary who inherits an Irish castle from a distant relative, her patronizing lawyer/fiance who only wants her body, an Irish dreamboat who slowly sinks into alcoholism (the “curse of his race”), a married German couple (he was an officer in the SS and she was a Jewish woman he met in a concentration camp – the flashback to their romance reads like When Harry Met Sally meets Schindler’s List) and an American family consisting of two bickering parents and their hot-to-trot seventeen-year-old daughter, you’d kind of think that Christopher might be predisposed for the gonzo stuff teased on the cover rather than quiet horror, but the man wants to write quiet horror no matter how much we want him to write Gestapochauns II: The Whipping.

Read the rest of this review here

[Plagued by Visions · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Quiet horror” is not the route I would’ve personally taken when it comes to BDSM nazi leprechauns, but what do I know?

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is book made infamous by the paperback cover featured in the introduction to Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction. You may have heard of it as “that book with the Nazi S&M leprechaun sex slaves.”



I’m here to set to the record straight. This isn’t about Nazi S&M leprechauns at all. It’s about Nazi S&M Irish fairies. It’s a totally different thing.

Okay, you got me. It’s actually about little people bioengineered by Nazis and trained to be S&M sex slaves who are also psychic. I hope that clears it right up.

The book offers suprisingly deep character studies of each of the big people; the mutually loathing American couple and their quiet teen daughter, the young Irish lawyer with a crush on the young English engaged hotellier, her fiance, the German son of a Nazi and his Jewish wife. They all receive potentially sympathetic treatment over the course of this slow-burn, mild horror novel from the 1960s. I enjoyed it quite a bit in that respect, but the ending is terribly unsatisfying.

So what does an author do after writing about leprechaun sex slaves? Write children’s books, of course (The Tripods Trilogy). Oddly enough, I have those on my bookshelf also.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, for an Irish-nazi-dwarf story.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes you judge the book by its cover but sometimes the books cover judges you. No, that's not quite it.... I stumbled across this odd little volume in a used bookstore and grabbed it up because it had one of the most over-the-top gonzo covers I'd ever seen. Even the guy at the cash register commented that it was of the most striking he'd ever noticed. The crazy whip-wielding Nazi leprechauns aren't precisely as they are described in the text, but they're close enough. It's the story of a young lady who inherits an Irish castle and opens it as a hotel. The ten folks who are there for the grand opening are an unpleasant and unappealing lot (think Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with a Vincent Price filter), preoccupied with sex and alcohol and other such unwholesome pastimes, and the whippy Nazi gnomes only make things worse. Unfortunately it's a hundred pages or so into the text before the nasty little people are revealed, but we already know they're there because of the cover... oops. Actually, it's not a bad story, representative of mid-'60s British horror, but rather unremarkable other than for the cover on this edition.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 1 out of 5]

One expects a book like The Little People, with its insane cover art of a whip-wielding Nazi Leprechaun, would be some kind of pulp anti-masterpiece. Sadly, John Christopher's effort at atmospheric horror takes its premise dead seriously - and it's the reader who suffers. A lawyer and his secretary-fiancée relocate to a remote Irish estate, where they fall in with a German couple, a superstitious-but-hot local and some crude American stereotypes while they struggle to save their marriage. After about 100 pages of scene-setting, with tedious relationship drama and stillborn attempts at generating suspense ("Everyone knows leprechauns are extinct!"), Christopher finally brings on the titular Little People: a gang of foot-tall, German-speaking genetic freaks, evidently Jewish victims of Nazi experimentation (one of them, of course, named Adolf) who, somewhere along the way, developed psychic powers which they use to manipulate human dreams. There's some prurient interest when the Little People display their kinky side, with one tiny beauty stripping naked and trying to ride the protagonist's member in a scene drawn from someone's Very Specific Fetish. Or a scene where two of the humans make love, while a gaggle of giggling Leprechauns enjoy the show. The reader feels glad that Christopher, better-known for writing young adult science fiction, didn't send this manuscript to his usual editor. But that doesn't make the novel readable, whatever the cover may promise; a few scenes of camp madness don't make up for a tedious book where Lepreichauns are a subplot to a boring couple's personal woes.

[Maria Hill AKA MH Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember picking this up from Chapters bookshop in Dublin when I was a Young Teenager in the 80's. I was fascinated and it was quickly passed around my friends that summer. Its highest recommendation came from my best Friend's older brother who was in a band and read it in one sitting - stating it was excellent!

Totally weird, and mostly unrealistic trash, parts of this outrageous story stuck with me right up to watching Buffy the Vampire on TV where a particular scene about two lovers could have been ripped right out of this tale.

[Stay Fetters · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I was upstairs in the passage when they came after me. They harried me, and they took my voice from me so that I could not cry out. The stairs door was open, and I made for that. And they threw me down. I heard them laughing up above, and I lay as though I was dead and prayed."

I've recently read Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix. It was one of those books that I bought when it first came out and it sat on my shelf until I thought it was time to take a magical trip back in time. Go back to a time when you could buy the craziest paperback books at the grocery store. Where no one would bat an eye at seeing a skeleton holding a baby on the cover of a book. As I said, it was a magical time. This was the first book mentioned and I knew that I had to track this one down. It was a tough road but here we are.

This book wasn't like I expected it to be. Our little people friends really didn't make their grand appearance until the last sixty or so pages. They do create a little bit of mischief before the big reveal. Even though it wasn't all push and shove (down the stairs), I really did like this. The story flowed smoothly and was interesting. It kept me around until I finished it.

The Little People was a decent read. It will be slow moving for some because you had to wait for the horrorshow to happen. I would have loved for the little people to be more terrifying but we get what we get. It was still interesting and one I can see myself rereading.

Leave your candles, rope, and knives at a location where these people can get to them... Don't say that I didn't warn you!

[D.M. Ritzlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review previously appeared on the DMR Books Blog.

This book has a whip-wielding Nazi leprechaun on the cover. I thought this would be one of the trashiest novels I’ve ever read, but hopefully it would be some good dumb fun, too. Neither expectation was met. Instead of the wild, pulpy “novel of pure terror” the cover promises, we get a psychological drama. The tale takes place at an old house in the remote wilds of Ireland. Bridget Chauncey, an Englishwoman, has inherited the place from her uncle. She decides to turn the place into a hotel, to the disappointment of her lusty fiancé, Daniel. Daniel arrives for a visit and meets the other guests: a couple from Germany (Stefan and his Jewish wife Hanni, who he married due to holocaust-guilt) and an American family (Waring, his horrid wife Helen, and their teenage daughter Cherry). Christopher frequently digresses into each character’s backstory and their neuroses, bogging down the pace of the novel.

The day after discussing faerie folk, the group finds a tiny footprint and other evidence of such creatures. That night they lie in wait in the catacombs beneath the tower, and successfully capture one: an emotionless 12-inch tall girl who only speaks German. She goes along willingly and introduces them to the six others of her kind. While the others debate what to do, Stefan investigates the tower and finds documents detailing the creatures’ origin. It turns out (spoiler alert) they are not supernatural beings at all, but Jewish children subjected to Nazi anti-aging experiments during World War II. (Why was Bridget’s uncle in league with National Socialists? Why would he let the children live in his tower? No explanations are given.) What is not detailed in the documents is the fact that as result of these experiments, the “little people” have developed ESP, which they use to psychologically torment the humans. By the end most of the characters are emotionally scarred, but many of them were to begin with, so they weren’t much worse off.

This novel wasn’t as bad as I’m making it seem, but it could have been a lot better if the “pure terror” section was longer than just the penultimate chapter. If you’re looking for the great Nazi leprechaun novel (and who isn’t?), I fear it is yet to be written.

[S.M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

They may cast terror by night, but when the sun rises, a few kicks disperse them.

Seven (because of course) German-speaking psychic little people genetically altered by a Nazi while living in an Irish castle terrorize a group of regular-sized dullards on said castle's stairs a couple of times and then they all live happily ever after.

It really takes effort to turn a premise like this into a big pile of boring nothing.

[N. M. D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vacationers stay at an isolated Irish castle, where they stumble upon seven one-foot-tale people who are the results of longevity experiments perpetrated by the Nazis on Jewish fetuses.

If you're interested in this book because of it's legendary cover, allow me to, not dampen, but alter, your exceptions. You're not going to get the level of promised Nazi B-movie absurdity along the lines of Blood Creek or Dead Snow. What you get instead is what is now referred to as elevated horror.

The characters are representations of their post-WWII countries and everyone is part of a pair. The dynamics of the relationships are the main focus of the story. They're not exactly likable,  but they're believable in their pettiness, their self-effacing, and their misery. A lot of time is spent building them up for the reader so they can then be torn down, and every one walks away with a new understanding of themselves and their partners. Some characters come out changed for the better, others much worse.

The most compelling pair are the Germans, made up of former a SS solider whose father held a high rank, and his half-Jewish wife who lost the Jewish side of her family to the camps. The little people force him to confront his constant guilt and horror at his family lineage. It's rare that I can say that the Nazi is the most sympathetic character but here we are. At the story's climax, several of the pairs experience shared hallucinations/flashbacks, and the one between the two Germans left me breathless.

An aside: despite this book being generally shelved with horror, I'd place it more toward soft science fiction, with its dealing in ESP and medical alterations of the pituitary. Also, the little people are unnerving but nothing really horrory happens.

[Becca · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea here is fascinating...unfortunately the execution of the idea falls flat. Most of the book consists of half a dozen different internal monologues...long, long monologues. About things that COULD be tied together, but ultimately never really are. I went into this with very low expectations, so I stuck through until the end and it wasn't TERRIBLE, but it's just so anticlimactic. There are so many directions this book could have gone and it didn't really go anywhere. There's not much terror or horror or anything too terribly exciting. I read a chapter a night, like it was more an assignment, less a compulsion. I'd skip this one unless you're a huge fan.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Turns out it's not about the little people I expected.

[Stuart Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read. There is something about John Christopher's writing that appeals to me, having grown up devouring his teen sci-fi. This is a more adult affair about nazi leprechauns!
The strength of the book is the deep characterisation of the hotel guests in mild peril. The plot is interesting enough to keep you turning the pages.

[an infinite number of monkeys · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up because it's mentioned in Grady Hendrix' Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction. Unfortunately, the Library has the hardcover, so I didn't get the joy of seeing the twisted paperback cover image. I cannot say that I was lured in by a lurid cover, and so I have no good excuse for reading this. It is not really a horror story, it is a comedy of manners. Several people gather in a castle-turned-inn far from the beaten path, we are given their backstories, and then the book follows their reactions when an unusual situation develops. The situation isn't a dead body in the drawing room, but seven little people bred by a mad Nazi doctor who have been fending for themselves in the castle since their caretaker died. And they can psychically project hallucinations into the big people. There's a lot of discussion about what to do, a couple falls in love, another breaks up, almost everyone gets a little wiser, and they all leave the castle forever, promising never to reveal what has happened to them. The story could have used a detective showing up to question everyone to move it along.

[David Svedberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prose was a bit pretentious for my liking and the first few pages are awful for it. A man glances at his and his wife's reflection in a dining room window, which is written as "He stared at their left handed doppelgangers." Why? That's not vivid or evocative, that's what a stupid person thinks sophisticated writing looks like. Worst is, that lines thrown in as an aside from the most brutally insufferable introduction to our main characters, in which the husband describes the reason he eats large breakfasts on holidays in the exact same self-important overwritten prose.

That aside, the whole thing was a surprisingly tasteful execution on an outlandish pulpy premise. A couple inherit a castle in Rural Ireland and find seven dollhouses in the attic with functional plumbing, one of the guests spots a tiny person through their window one night leading them to think they've discovered some sort of fairy village.

If you're looking for a quick spooky read for Halloween it's decent. Has some seriously creepy moments, but it's not something I'd encourage anyone to rush out and read unless they're looking for a very specific vibe.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel came into my awareness because of the Hector Garrido cover art and description provided in PAPERBACKS FROM HELL. A friend was enticed to pick it up and read it. Upon completion, they pressed it into my hands because “I deserved it” -- although that sounded vaguely like a threat.

Unfortunately, that cover art sets a very difficult bar for fiction to rise to. Particularly when the book wants to be quiet horror instead of gonzo exploitation. The pacing is a bit off, but it’s an easy read. We’re presented with a batch of misanthropes that are isolated in a keep deep in Irish boglands. For such a compact volume, the depth of character is effective for something approaching a dozen characters. Part of the reason for this is because there’s not much plot to compete for space. Our monsters are not effectively used, as they mostly become mechanisms to explore the guilt and regret of every member of the merry band.

2.5 rounded up to 3

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Christopher carefully sets up a bizarre variation of a haunted house scenario: At an isolated B&B in a remote, ancient castle in rural Ireland, the guests capture a tiny woman, about 12" tall. The guests all have competing interests, relationships and antagonisms. Initially, they believe their discovery proves that the Irish legends of "little people" are real. Further investigations reveal something much more twisted and evil. The main menace has so much potential for a chilling horror novel, and Christopher totally whiffs it. The novel's main climax is a terrible disappointment, really letting down all the buildup that leads to it. I don't care much for overly-long "doorstop" horror novels, but this one could have used a few hundred more pages to let the suspense simmer and reach an actual climax.

[Mikepottz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lady inherits an Irish castle miles from any town. The castle is headed on its way to ruins and she decides to start a hotel business. While inspecting the castle she finds a tower and inside there are doll houses 2 feet tall with furniture, bedding and plumbing. A bunch of different couples come and stay and some of them start seeing leprechauns outside in the dark. They decide to see if they are real. They capture one and find out they are 1 feet tall, dressed in green, their mothers given drugs during birth at concentration camps and were born a few inches long. Taken to Ireland their master holds them in this castle, trains them in S &M (they have whip marks done their backs) and they develop ESP which they torment the guests. Some of the guests drink champagne at the end. Equally good and bad, as bonkers as it sounds it was quite tame.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book in a charity shop, along with a few others by Christopher, and bought them on the strength of a mention in a book about horror paperbacks of the 70s and 80s. It was the first book mentioned, and promised a weird tale of Nazi Leprechauns hell-bent on terror. The cover promises a "nerve-rending terror" so I was convinced.

So the book gets a low rating largely because it is not a horror story, and it does not deliver in terms of horror, terror or, even, titillation. It was enjoyable enough (no more than a three-star) and if the cover and blurb hadn't been so mis-leading I might have been prepared to rate it at that level, but if you are a fan of horror I'd advise you to steer clear of this. If you're a fan of oddities then this may be right up your street.

[Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

I arrived because of the infamous cover detailed in Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks From Hell.

I stayed because amazingly the character development in this book is actually above par. It was great!

I left because for a book that's supposed to be a terrifying novel about S&M nazi leprechauns...it really wasn't. I mean, they're there! They're more a product of the nazi regime rather than being nazi's themselves though. The S&M description was on point though...*shudders*

If you're delving into this one, just be aware it's a quiet quiet quiet horror, and is very likely to not be what you're expecting of it.

[Brent Winslow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes a novel crosses the threshold of creative into crazy - and The Little People by John Christopher definitely crosses that threshold. A tale of a secretary who inherits a mansion off the beaten path in Ireland, converts it into a hotel, and discovers a group of 1 foot tall little people sounds quaint. However, crazy enters when the story of the little people is explained, originating in WWII concentration camps, and their growing psychic powers are used to destroy relationships. Ultimately an interesting, crazy tale that remains unsatisfying.

[Jim Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book as with all of the John Christopher books that I have read. It's Ireland, it's little people, but it's not quite what you think. As always, John Christopher writes his characters and their interactions with such common sense, that you are left baffled as to why everyone cannot write like this. This was another addictive page turner that was completely interesting the whole way through. The book ended kinda weird but as always, it's the journey that counts and not the destination.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a lot of people it seems, I read this book because of Paperbacks From Hell and THAT cover. The book in absolutely no ways lives up to the promise of the cover or the S+M Nazi leprechaun premise. It's actually a fairly well written slow boiler rather than an outright horror, in fact it fails almost every test of what even makes a horror. It's not a bad book at all but it's good in a very different way from the way you might expect.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Christopher has such a natural voice, even a ponderous bore of a book like this is still an ok read. It was just ok though. He may have been able to pull something off in a story a quarter the size, but instead he decided to antagonize us in long form with abrupt mood switches and an under baked “mystery.”

[Marsha Valance · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bridget's inheritance from an Irish relative is a a crumbling house and tower on the edge of a bog in County Mayo. When she decides to run it as a hotel, she and her guests discover the previous inhabitants: seven miniature people inhabiting a room of dollhouses. But why do they only speak German, and what mysterious powers do they possess? A Science Fiction Book Club selection.

[Gary Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't label it "slowly laid on terror" as the cover reads. If you remove one chapter, it becomes a mystery with a bit of suspense. But it was entertaining and it kept me interested.

The author paints a beautiful picture of the castle where the bulk of the story takes place, and takes a deep dive into the history psyche of every relevant character.

[Arin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written book with a plot you would not think would make for a good story. I liked the diversity of the characters as well as their depth. It was hard sometimes to know whether to laugh or cringe, but I think it is well worth the read for 60's-80's horror novel enthusiasts.

[Chris Greensmith · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Die Fahne hoch,
Die Reihe dicht geschlossen,
Marschieren auj, mit ruhig' jestigem Schritt . . .
Kameraden die Rotjront und Reaktion erschossen
Marschieren im Geist in unseren Reihen mit!

[Pedro Pascoe · Rating 2 out of 5]

An infamous little book (no pun intended) moreso for the cover other than this one. I had picked it up towards the end of last month as a token Halloween read.

This book spends way too much time on character background and way too little time on putting them through the wringer. It was a build up that took too long, and left too little time for the payoff, which was psychological rather than actual horror, and felt like it should really have been a short story rather than a novel. Even then, the payoff would have been lacking. Were the good bits of this book made in to a trailer, it might have been worth watching as a trailer. Maybe. It would have left more to the imagination than the story ultimately paid out.

Worth reading? I would have advised myself from a few weeks ago no. I mean, the promise of Nazi leprechauns with whips could have at least been camped up and churned out into a cult classic, but it failed in that even. Oh well...