The Times wrote of John Wyndham's terrifying post-apocalyptic thriller The Day of the Triffids that it had, "All the reality of a vividly realized nightmare."
It may best serve our purposes to tell what triffids actually are. Triffids are odd, interesting little plants that grow in everyone's garden. Triffids are no more than mere curiosities until an event occurs that alters human life: what seems to be a spectacular meteor shower, turns into a bizarre, green inferno that blinds everyone and thus renders humankind helpless. What follows is even stranger: spores from the inferno cause the triffids to suddenly take on a life of their own and they become large, crawling vegetation with the ability to uproot itself and roam about the country attacking humans and inflicting pain and agony.
William Masen somehow managed to escape being blinded in the inferno (yet he was still hospitalized, eyes bandaged following surgery), and he is now one of the few surviving human beings who can see and who can avoid being attacked by the triffids and who just might be able to save mankind from the terrible chaos as well as possible extinction.
The Day of the Triffids is generally held to be Wyndham's finest novel, and it was his first truly significant work. Wyndham's writing style has aptly been described as "speculative fiction". However, the real power of this book lays not in its pure invention but rather in its matter-of-fact depiction of such bizarre phenomena happening so suddenly in the midst of day-to-day life.
The narrative voice of William Masen is calm and reasoned as he describes the ongoing nightmare and the attempt of those who try to prevail as he recalls the struggle from an almost historical perspective. The story is therefore mesmerizing and has never lost its quiet terror.
The Midwich Cuckoos was made into the blockbuster cult horror film Village of the Damned.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (1903-69) was a British novelist who wrote under the name John Wyndham, although he had at least seven other pen names. Wyndham began publishing stories in the early 1930s, often in American magazines, but did not really find his stride as a writer until he returned from serving for World War II. The War changed the world drastically, and it was now in the grips of nuclear apocalypse, a scenario that both terrified and fascinated Wyndam. While Wyndham's approach to writing is best classified as fantasy and science fiction, his work is often said to transcend both genre and category. Both The Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos (titled The Village of the Damned) were made into blockbuster movies.
SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
From classic book to classic film, RosettaBooks has gathered some of most memorable books into film available. The selection is broad ranging and far reaching, with books from classic genre to cult classic to science fiction and horror and a blend of the two creating whole new genres like Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man. Classic works from Vonnegut, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, meet with E.M. Forster's A Passage to India. Whether the work is centered in the here and now, in the past, or in some distant and almost unimaginable future, each work is lasting and memorable and award-winning.
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.
Review
After reading this little horror you will toss your innocent geranium out the window. The triffids are gigantic plants, mysteriously arrived on earth, which take up their roots and walk, searching for men to kill. A terrible celestial incident, which permanently blinds the majority of people on earth, helps the belligerent blossoms in their work. William Mason, escaping blindness, teams up with a beautiful (sighted) girl and after mishaps and separations in a decaying and de-populated world starts a colony with other pioneers as the triffids lean wistfully against the fences. Fast, readable and triffid-ly chilling. (Kirkus Reviews) --Ed Gorman
"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
Library : General
Formats : EPUB
ISBN : 9780795312113