The Day of the Triffids

John Wyndham
The Day of the Triffids Cover

The Day of the Triffids

Momosnyx
5/27/2016
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Not a review, but some obeservations:

I read this book immediately after finishing Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles". Amusingly, both books use Lord Byron poem "So, we'll go no more a'roving" to lament the downfall of a civilization. In "The Martian Chronicles" it is quoted while walking through a dead Martian city. In "The Day of the Triffids" the poem refers to the Human race. Quite a strange coincidence.

Most apocalyptic stories I am aware of, use a single cause for the downfall of civilization. In "The Day of the Triffids" it is a combination of several factors:

  1. people going blind
  2. the emergence of the triffids
  3. an epidemic

It can be argued that these three apocalypses have a common origin, nevertheless, I can't think of another book, where multiple catastrophes occur.

The plot device of the protagonist missing the the apocalypse due to a hospital stay, reminds the strongly of "The Walking Dead". And the Triffids' attack at the end of the book has some strong similarities to the ubiquituos szene in almost every Zombie movie where a Zombie horde attacks the fence of a compound of survivors.