The Day of the Triffids, written by John Wyndham, was published in 1951 to interest, but not acclaim. Over the last 66 years, it has come to be regarded as a classic of science fiction with all the reality of a vividly realized nightmare. A 1963 film was made which introduced the man-eating plants to a greater population and inducted the name 'Triffid' into pop culture.
No one knows how the strange, seven-foot tall, bulbous rooted plants came to be - they simply began growing all over the world. They lived by stunning insects, birds, animals, with a sharp and deadly lash of a poisonous stinger. They also had the odd ability to pull up their tripod type roots and become mobile. Seen as a nuisance, they could be carefully bred for the valuable new type of oil they produced. Botanist Bill Masen was recovering in hospital, eyes bandaged after a slight Triffid sting, when the comets struck. People in every country watched the evening sky awash in the bright green light. The next day, every one of those people were struck with blindness. Bill, saved by his bandages, woke up to a world almost deserted - many people have died accidentally or killed themselves in fear and hopelessness. Amidst masses of sightless people wandering the city, groping for food, he meets a young sighted woman and they team up to survive. As they find other disparate camps of sighted people, they realize another plague is upon them - with society in shambles, the Triffids are untended, unleashed and multiplying, eager to feast on flesh, alive or dead.
An interesting thing about this novel of survival is the lack of explanation - the feeling that our destruction will be from random, unconnected events causes the characters to shift from hope to despair. All they can do is maintain daily life, whether that is by forming a new society or escaping alone. Realizing the events were global, many won't have the courage to begin from scratch. Bill spends a lot of time moving between different groups, and overall I felt the novel could have used momentum - there was far too much conversation and my interest stalled at the halfway point. Very much like the plots of The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man, the man-eating Triffids seem almost secondary to this intriguing look at a post-apocalyptic world.
My other reviews of John Wyndham:
1951 / Tradeback / 228 pages
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