The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Fawcett Crest Books, ISBN 0 449 20324 7
Price paid: 1,00$

What a juicy little book! This is the second book you need to read in order to comprehend all the "us versus them" movies that have appeared in the last forty years (the first one being The Puppet Masters).

The Day of the Triffids presents the story of a new plant, named triffid, and the consequences of its continued existence for the human race.

The triffids can walk and seem to possess an animal intelligence, making them smart enough to properly dispose of humans. However, they also produce a type of oil that is richer than any other oil found on Earth and thus are bred by corporations.

Their only weakness seem to be the lack of sight, a problem that is settled after a certain night, where the most extreme of meteor showers leave ninety percent of the population totally blind. The protagonist and a few others have to face the fact that the world has forever changed and our place - both in society and the food chain - has been ultimately altered in a very chaotic way.

Is it worth a dollar?

Many scenes from this book have been "borrowed" by the writers behind the movie "28 Days Later" and for good reason; this book spares no time explaining how quickly and painfully the humans can tip themselves off the scale of survival. The scenes in which this situation is set are so iconic that they deserve the homage they got. The fact that plants are used and not aliens or zombies make the situation even better. This is our fault; the only ones to blame are ourselves.

I absolutely enjoyed it and it now figures in my favorites. The pace is decent, the action never stops and it is intelligent.