Product Description

In 1951 John Wyndham published his novel The Day of the Triffids to moderate acclaim. Fifty-two years later, this horrifying story is a science fiction classic, touted by The Times (London) as having “all the reality of a vividly realized nightmare.”

Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses the most spectacular meteorite shower England has ever seen. Removing his bandages the next morning, he finds masses of sightless people wandering the city. He soon meets Josella, another lucky person who has retained her sight, and together they leave the city, aware that the safe, familiar world they knew a mere twenty-four hours before is gone forever.

But to survive in this post-apocalyptic world, one must survive the Triffids, strange plants that years before began appearing all over the world. The Triffids can grow to over seven feet tall, pull their roots from the ground to walk, and kill a man with one quick lash of their poisonous stingers. With society in shambles, they are now poised to prey on humankind. Wyndham chillingly anticipates bio-warfare and mass destruction, fifty years before their realization, in this prescient account of Cold War paranoia.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14973 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-01
• Released on: 2003-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Library Journal
This classic sf novel traces the fate of the world after a comet shower blinds most of the world's population. The few with sight must struggle to reconstruct society while fighting mobile, flesh-eating plants called triffids. Samuel West's narration of this powerful and realistic story provides a flawless interpretation of the text. The listener is caught up in the catastrophic chain of events, imagined and told with such skill?by narrator as well as author?that one can easily visualize the cataclysmic events. All of West's vocal characterizations, including cockney accents, female voices, and children's voices, ring true. This superlative production of an outstanding and entertaining novel belongs in all audio collections.?Melody Moxley, Rowan P.L., Salisbury, N.C.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
The first few seconds of THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS announce excellence in the form of an unusually clear recording of a marvelously cultivated voice reading a well-crafted text. The listener's engagement is immediate and effortless. The thoughtful, understated story of how the few survivors of a mysterious cataclysm cope with their changed world seems to tell itself without an intermediary performer. One might expect a work of science fiction that is more than 40 years old to seem dated; this one does not. Fine writing flawlessly projected-- this is what we hope for every time we load a new tape. J.N. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
"A thoroughly English apocalypse, it rivals H. G. Wells in conveying how the everyday invaded by the alien would feel. No wonder Stephen King admires Wyndham so much."
--RAMSEY CAMPBELL

"John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids is one of my all-time favorite novels. It's absolutely convincing, full of little telling details, and that sweet, warm sensation of horror and mystery."
--JOE R. LANSDALE

"My son's middle name is Wyndham. Does that tell you how much I respect and revere the late John Wyndham? And The Day of the Triffids is the best of them all. He was a wonderful writer who was able to reinvigorate science fiction with spectacle and true thrills, and do so with a writing voice that created both suspense and elegance. A true master."
--ED GORMAN

Customer Reviews

Triffids Light It Up!
Day of the Triffids kicks butt! Two weeks ago I had never heard of John Wyndham, but I found his name in scifi.com's fiction archive, and I looked up his books here at Amazon.

The opening scene in Triffids is mesmerizing. The basic premise of the book is that a meteor shower blinds most of the world population, except for a handful of people. One of lucky ones is Bill Masen, who was in a hospital with bandages over his eyes and was not able to watch the meteor shower. Towards the end of the book, narrator Masen speculates that the meteor shower might have been caused by man-made satellites orbiting Earth, and indeed, the whole apocalyptic vision of the novel voices the concerns any sane human being would have had shortly after WWII and the discovery of the destructive power of atomic energy.

That said, the novel is not at all a doom and gloom book. It is actually quite hopeful, optimistic, and funny. There is a romantic subplot wherein Bill meets a charming woman named Josella Payton, only to be separated from her in the aftermath of the devastating meteor shower. A good part of the book follows Bill's search for Josella through various malevolent organizations that spring up in the months after the meteor shower.

Developing alongside this story line, is the story of the triffids, a kind of six-foot-tall Venus Flytrap with a stinging whip that has the ability to pick up its roots and walk around. In the wake of world blindness, these plants begin attacking people who stumble blindly around London and the English countryside outside of London.

The novel has a very solid ending that made me feel happy to have read the book. It was such a good story I'm going to see if I can get a copy of Wyndham's other classic bestseller, The Cuckoo's of Midwich. I highly recommend Day of the Triffids to any sci-fi fan, as well as to anyone who likes a good old-fashioned white-knuckle yarn. And, of course, I hope this review is helpful to you!

Stacey

PS Do me a favor and click "yes" if you would be interested in seeing a modern Hollywood remake Day of the Triffids.

Post-Apocalypse Now!
Fantastic, frightening and entirely plausible, "Day of the Triffids" is a post-apocalyptic story based on a simple hypothesis - mass blindness coupled with the natural disaster of a mobile stinging plant called the triffid created by genetic engineering gone sour! Wyndham's genius is how he uses the tale of his still sighted protagonists, Bill Masen and Josella Playton, to address the moral and psychological issues that would be certain to raise their heads in this particular new world order - the definition of marriage, sexuality and the survival of the race, law and order, male vs female roles, government and authority, survival of the fittest and many more. Thought provoking in the extreme and yet still completely satisfying even when read only on the surface as a science-fiction thriller!

Paul Weiss

Amazing
This was a fantastic book, dealing with an apocalypse and humanity's responses to it. No quite the same as 'Resident Evil' and '28 Days Later' which both were inspired by this book, but much more entertaining and intellectual.