A truly alien lifeform arrives on earth, in the form of tiny, beautiful crystals which have the ability to form together into elaborate structures. The "Trillions" as they come to be known, also have a sort of hive mind. They are intelligent. Children love them, but adults are fearful of them and set about destroying them with nuclear weapons. The general who leads this operation is an almost pantomime villain, a one-dimensional caricature of a military man of action.

That was the plot I latched onto reading this book when I was nine. (More than 50 years ago, how did that happen?!). There were also the child characters: a couple of boy geniuses, Scott and Bem, each one an uber geek in a different way. The nerdy nine-year old me I liked them both. There are other younger children making up a kind of Famous Five gang whose destiny is to save the world.

Reading it again now I'm surprised at how much else is in there. Firstly, there is the ex-astronaut with a massive dose of PTSD and facial scarring from burns sustained in a mission gone wrong. He ends up being a sort of honorary member of the juvenile gang of interplanetary interlocutors. Icarus, as he is known, also delves into an incongruous series of debates and discussions with Scott. They explore subjects like the deficiencies of a dualistic model of good and evil, and contemplate a sort of Gaia hypothesis. Yikes! What happened to the pantomime general, so simple and obvious? Suddenly this book has become deep and cosmic in an almost psychedelic way. And the flyleaf says "for readers ten and over"!

A lot of it went over my head as I defiantly ignored the age guide and read it a year early, but I also recall being kind of high on the experience of reading this book, the first one to have that sort of transcendent effect on my brain that only a good book can provide.

I wish I could say that the philosophical musings are more coherent to me as an adult reader. Scott and Icrarus have their eureka moment and work out what it all means, and it is great for the story, but even now I'm scratching my head at their conclusion. It somehow fails to translate into a broadly applicable meaning in the way that a novel by, say, Ursula le Guin would (e.g. Ged's defeat of the shadow in "A Wizard of Earthsea").

It's not too bad, the actions they take in "Trillions" make sense even if their supposed insights and motivations do not.

I think the cover illustration of the Puffin edition is superb. I still have my copy from the early 70s, with its recommended retail price of 65 Australian cents. What a treasure!