The Day of the Triffids

I recalled seeing the 1962 movie version as a teenager and had rather low expectation based on its typical monsters run amok plotline, But needing an easy read over vacation, I took a chance and was happily rewarded with well developed characters and situations. A scifi novel that holds up well even after all these years.

Yes. The world ending my a "zombie plague" is so popular, this shows the end of the world by a plague of man eating plants that move a lot like zombies.

When they find out the Triffids are turning the tables on humanity, and the girl finds her family and house over run.

Wonderful voice.

A good exciting ending.

like zombie movies? You'll like this!

I have loved this story for a long time. It was great to hear an audio version. The message seems so appropriate today in a world of genetic engineering, space defense systems, biological warfare, and intentional introduction of invasive of foreign plant and animal species. Every time I hear tapping sticks, I wonder if a triffid has arrived at my door. The BBC did a wonderful television production in the mid-80s. The production values are quite simple compared to today's but it is very effective.

Elevated above the killer plant aspect by the author's intelligent consideration and exploration of what various forms humanity might take given a cataclysmic accident like the overnight blinding of most of the world's populace -- from those who deal with the disaster in a military fashion, religious fashion, progressive fashion, and so on. It's a book that leaves one with much to ponder and consider long after the scary story elements that pull you in.

The scary "things" are a surprise and the story kept me wondering what was next.

The performance genuinely encouraged your emotions.

One thing that always bothers me in these books where there are Zombies, Aliens or Killer Plants invading the earth, why do these authors believe humans will sit by and do nothing. First we have these plants that kill and blind people and then eat them. According to this author we will make pets of them. It takes two years of these plants multiplying and ganging up to kill whole towns before somebody thinks we should start hunting them down.

I don't know about England, but in gun loving America these things would have become a National sport day one.

We also have these Meteors that blind people. The author does not seem to recognize that half of the world is in daylight while the other half is in dark. We are lead to believe the whole world is blinded in one night.

Then when most everyone is blinded, they start killing themselves. An eighteen year old beauty who is blind offers herself to a man if he will help take care of her. He is to proper for that, but he does help her take pills to kill her self. A young couple throws themselves out a window. Blind people are considered totally helpless.

The book is well written and there are some very good parts, it is just a little depressing on how down the author is on mankind.

Much more like George R. Stewart's end-of-the-world book The Earth Abides than I'd remembered, The Day of the Triffids backgrounds its vile green monsters in favor of an episodic post-apocalypse narrative in which an Everyman ping-pongs between various Human Responses to the disaster: despair, greed, idealism, profit, militarism, etc. As long as you're prepared for only occasional passages featuring the ambulatory killer plants of the title, and can staunch your disappointment at the lack of a triffid-centric narrative, you should find it a very suspenseful and moving novel, as I did.