"The Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham

Bill Mason wakes up in hospital on the day he is due to have the bandages removed that he has worn over his eyes for the last seven days. But the nurse doesn't respond to his calls and the hospital ward is silent. Eventually Bill makes the decision to remove the bandages himself; luckily his vision has returned after his accident seven days ago, but he discovers that just about everyone else in the world has gone blind. It all began the previous night when the world was witness to a spectacular, never seen before display of lights, thought to be a vibrant meteor shower; anyone who went outside to watch the display is now blind. Bill walks around central London trying to make sense of the situation when he meets Josella Playton, who escaped blindness after sleeping-off a party two nights ago. The pair meet up with a group of sighted individuals that have holed-up in the University building and are planning to gather supplies and head out into the countryside before things turn too nasty in the cities. The night before they are due to leave Bill and Josella commit to a sort of marriage to one another in their new community but are separated when they are kidnapped, along with others in the group by Coker, a sighted man who has been trying to round up assistance for a large number of blind followers, ever hopeful that what ever disaster has befallen London and England has spared some other country in the world (Coker speculates the United States) and that they only need to keep as many people alive as long as possible before help inevitably arrives. After days of being chained to and forced to support his gang of blind followers, members of the group start to fall victim to an unknown disease (thought to be similar to typhoid, but not exactly the same). After almost all of the group perish, Bill escapes and finding an abandoned truck loaded with supplies, sets off into the countryside to find the university group and hopefully Josella.

Whats all this got to do with "Triffids" you ask? Well, Triffids are a strange kind of plant that was discovered by the world about twenty years before the current events. Triffids grow to about two and a half meters tall, can lift themselves up and walk (albeit slowly) and possess a stinging tendril which they can lash out at their prey to a distance over four meters and can kill a full sized human in a single blow. Bill Mason works with Triffids for a living and is all too familiar with their dangerous behaviour (his original eye injury was attributed to a Triffid sting). With most of the world's population blind, Bill predicts Triffids will become a big problem and his prediction is correct; the Triffids run amok in the cities and countryside alike, making an easy meal out of the blind wandering the streets.

Eventually Bill finds Josella at a country house she told him about during the night at the university building and for the next few years they setup a life amongst the house's other residents, having a child. During a visit to the coast one year, Bill speculates that the meteor shower was probably a cold-war era orbiting weapons system that malfunctioned and that the disease that killed off so many in the days following the blindness was probably also attributed to a satellite weapon. During the trip home, a helicopter arrives at the country house bringing news of a colony that has been setup on the Isle of Wight by some of the original university group and Bill, Josella and the rest of the household and invited to move there. Deciding to move after the next summer, the group narrowly avoid being recruited into another new world order led by a sighted man Bill associates with indiscriminate killing during the days following the meteor shower in London, and escape to the Isle of Wight to live out the rest of their days.

"The Day of the Triffids" is a fantastic read, a genuinely creepy and convincing horror story built out of a such a strange sounding premise (killer plants take over the planet after everyone goes blind from a meteor shower). The author takes this creative scenario and by using an engaging set of characters and plot, analyses the ethics in a survival situation and the changed moral values of the post-apocalyptic world. The novel has been defined as a "cosy catastrophe" where the few sighted characters retreat into the countryside for a relatively comfortable existence while the world collapses around them, and I found this same feeling transferred to the reader, making it quite a cosy read.

I'm looking forward to reading more Wyndham; "Triffids" was a really enjoyable, an easy read, an sf classic. Definitely recommended.