About the only thing I knew about The Day of the Triffids was that it was a horror/sci-fi novel about triffids, a species of ambulatory, deadly plants, killing people. I picked up this novel expecting the literary equivalent of a cheesy B-movie. I couldn’t have been more wrong. As this book beings, a strange astronomical phenomenon, a kind of meteor shower of green lights, is seen all over the world; the next morning, everyone who saw that meteor shower has been stricken completely blind. Bill Masen, our erstwhile hero, is one of the lucky ones; he was in the hospital with his eyes bandaged after an injury when the meteor shower occurred, so he’s one of only a handful of people in all of London who can still see. We then follow Bill through a grim, very serious and very dark experience of watching society crumble. Oh, yes, the triffids. Well, it seems they’re a new species of bio-engineered plants that produce a very valuable oil, but they also have a powerfully venomous stinger, grow to seven feet tall and, yes, they’re ambulatory. With human oversight, the triffids have proved not very dangerous. But now, that human oversight is gone, the triffids are producing their airborne seeds in abundance and could those strange sounds they make actually be some form of communication? Then, if things weren’t bad enough, a plague starts to spread. Could this be the end for humanity? This is, if that plot summary hasn’t made it clear enough, a really dark book. It’s also a real page-turner. This book really had to be incredibly influential on the zombie genre in the way that it depicts society crumbling as a massive horde of people are suddenly rendered blind and the few remaining people who can see quickly start to use their newfound power in all sorts of ways. Some people want to help the blind; some want to retreat into their own safe communities. The blind form roving mobs, driven by fear and anger as they struggle to find a way to survive in a world they can no longer navigate in safety. The triffids roam at random, preying on the blind with ease. The ways in which the book really explores all of the various ways in which the world of 1940s London would fall into chaos are creative and surprising at times. The cast of supporting characters is well-written and Bill functions as a slightly pedantic everyman, not at all portrayed as a great hero that’s particularly well-suited for survival, except for the fact that he knows a lot about triffids. I think the one thing that I might have as a complaint about this book is the fact that the ending is extremely predictable; then again, in 1951, maybe it wasn’t and it’s the fact that so many zombie shows and books and movies have borrowed it. And that’s a minor complaint anyway, given just how bracing and compelling this book is. At one point, a wealthy character, struck blind, dying in agony of the plague, begs for Bill to end her life; “So futile to have lived at all,” she muses. That could be from a Graham Greene novel. And no cheese at all; not even a slice. 4 stars.
tl;dr – iconic & influential sci-fi horror novel is bracing, dark, compelling and not nearly as cheesy as its premise might suggest; a fantastic, well-written page turner. 4 stars.