Rating: 
Summary: A World Gone Green
Review: This could very well be the most engaging story with the most ridiculous premise that I have ever read. The tagline might read: Everyone goes blind in a world ravaged by man eating plants! It sounds like a sixties B horror film... oh yeah, it was made into a sixties B horror film. Somehow, John Wyndham pulls it off. Bill Masen serves as our eyes in this blind world, and tells the tale of his life with total believability. The meteor shower event that causes the blindness and the appearance of the carnivous triffid plants are both explained in such a way as to be convincing. Of course, as is often the case with end of the world stories, the actual end of the world serves only as a setting for how the remaining characters will now interact. How will they live? What will they use for food? Will they develope into a new type of society? Wyndam's end of the world tool works better than most. Having helpless masses of blind people around raises some pretty serious ethical questions that can be related to many real problems in the here and now. And the triffids, they make the task of reinvinting the world just a little bit harder.In "The Day of the Triffids", characters grow and express better than in most science fiction novels. Family, love, fidelity, loyalty, and forgiveness are all deftly handled here, and not preachily. The triffids are ever present in the backdrop to the other grander themes. Wyndham, I believe, is going through somewhat of a resurgence, as "The Midwhich Cuckoo's" and "The Day of the Triffids" will both soon be availble in new less pulpy formats. In their new guise, perhaps they will attract some new readers. My only criticism concerns that trick that writers use to set up an unbelievable event. We see it all the time in the movies: before the truck explodes, they show us a gas leak. That way, when the truck does explode, we not only know why, but we see it as something that was likely to happen. Wyndam uses this tactic to excess, right down to a conversation Bill has with a coworker about how the triffids sure would be deadly to a blind person. "We can see and they can't. Take away that, and the superiority is gone." That's a somewhat unneccesary foundation, and not the only one of its kind. But in a novel with this monstrosity of a bizarre setting, it is a forgivable mistake to make.
Rating: 
Summary: A Totally Excellent Read!
Review: This is a fantastic book! It's one of the first science fiction books I've read, and now I want to read John Whyndam's other books. The plot is really good-a world in which most people have gone blind, then eaten by walking, talking plants! I give this book 5 out of 5. I just hope this doesn't happen in real life!
Rating:
Summary: good thought provoking book
Review: This is a good book and one that more people should take time to read. Dull at parts, but otherwise very interesting. Also, if you like the book, do not watch the 1963 film version. It takes away from the book and gives nothing back.
Rating: 
Summary: Was probably more original in its day
Review: This is a good story of so-called apocalyptic sci-fi. The beginning of the story hugely lacks in credibility, and the triffids are a really way too obvious examples of technology developed by mankind without always weighing the possible negative effects (nuclear holocaust was THE big theme, back then).
But the post-apocalypse part is among the better ones written.
Also, and this is welcome, Wyndham CAN write, I mean he can write in proper English, with more than a basic vocabulary, which turns the book into literature, wheras, very unfortunately, most sci-fi today is so poorly written, than even when it contains great ideas it just is not literature.
Rating:
Summary: My Personal FavoriteSci fi/Horror Novel!
Review: This is My personal favorite Science Fiction/Horror novel that I've ever read, I'm 39 yrs. old and I can still remember digging through my dad's Science Fiction books in the basement of our house when I came across this book, I sat down and read it in 2 day's and what an exhilarating frightening experience it was, one I will never forget. Unfortunately I compare everything to this brilliant story and it's a tough sell, so far Lucifers Hammer, RingWorld by Larry Niven and The Wanderer, Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber even come close in the sheer power of storytelling. I am still wondering why this hasn't been remade by hollywood with today's technology and actually follow the story this time(unlike the british version), it would be the movie event of the summer. Other stories worth reading by John Wyndham are Out of the Deep, Trouble with Lichen, Re-Birth, The Midwich Cuckoo's they are to put it subtly... awesome!. Try some of these stories also, they are incredible: Carrion Comfort, Hyperion, Fall of Hyperion,
and Phases of Gravity by Dan Simmons
Genesis by W. A. Harbinson
Fire by Alan Rodgers
Domain, The Fog, 48 hrs. by James Herbert
Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon
Deathbird Stories, Approaching Oblivion by Harlan Ellison
Hammer of God, Childhoods End by Arthur C. Clark
The Bridge by John Skipp and Craig Spector
More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
I am Legend by Richard Matheson
Dust by Charles Pellegrino
Year Zero, The Descent by Jeff Long
Logan's Run by William F. Nolan
Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson
Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
Read anything by the king of weird imaginative pseudo sci fi nightmares H. P. Lovecraft, I've yet to find any author that can accomplish what he can, no wasted words almost without blood and guts and excessive violence, surreal and hallucinogenic, but still creeps out the reader and keeps his/her riveted attention.
Rating:
Summary: A literal war between man and nature
Review: This is the first serious novel I ever read. (Before that I was only reading Doctor Who tie-in's.) After seeing the BBC adaptation on TV I wanted to read this book. I got it when I was 11 and have cherished it ever since. This was the book that made John Wyndham famous: the overnight destruction of civilization by "comet debris", the world overrun by flesh-eating plants called triffids. One could look at this book as a war between man and nature on a grand scale. When mankind was the species that dominated all others, nature was driven back, "suppressed", or killed in the name of progress. When the tables are suddenly turned, it looks as if mankind is in decline. As the years pass, dead cities are slowly disappearing, turning into jungles as nature takes hold. In a matter of time nature will take over completely and the triffids will be the new inheritors. Unless the human race can fight back and reassert itself. I have lost count of how many times I have read this book. I am 23 and the story is just as effective now as it was when I first read it. I like seeing all the different cover artwork that people have done for this book. The fact that it's been reprinted so many times is proof that this novel shows no sign of losing its popularity.
Rating:
Summary: Something new under the sun
Review: This novel is remarkable for introducing several ideas, and for setting new benchmarks for other speculative novels. Wyndham doesn't bog himself down in the technical details of the end of society, instead he focuses on the human effects. Perhaps more telling, he allows his characters to muddle about and take their time learning how to live in a decimated world., thus enabling the reader to constantly consider "What would I do?" An apocalyptic novel unlike any other
Rating:
Summary: Apocalypse Now!
Review: This was the first science fiction book I've read, and it's what got hooked on the genre. I remeber imagining as a child what it would be like to live in a world which has undergone such an Apocalypse, the book was so good, I WANTED to live in it. This book opens your mind. Buy it. Read it.
Rating:
Summary: It scared me stiff ...
Review: Until last week "The Day of The Triffids" was something I'd only heard of. And what I'd heard made me quite certain that I would never watch the film and I didn't know it was a book. But I recently read The Chrysalids on the recommendation of a friend and absolutely loved it. So I plucked up the courage and read The Day of The Triffids. I didn't have any preconceived notions as to what it was about so I was shocked when the world was blinded. I stayed up until the early hours of the morning reading it - I couldn't put it down before finishing it because I was certain to have nightmares. The next day I was strangely subdued - it's not often that a book affects me in that way. I can't express how pleased I am that I've read The Day of the Triffids - I feel awfully sorry for anyone who hasn't. Not that I'm in a hurry to read it again. I think I'll read it every decade so that it has the same affect on me each time. It is definitely on my top ten of books, and I've read a lot of books...
Rating:
Summary: It scared me stiff ...
Review: Until last week "The Day of The Triffids" was something I'd only heard of. And what I'd heard made me quite certain that I would never watch the film and I didn't know it was a book. But I recently read The Chrysalids on the recommendation of a friend and absolutely loved it. So I plucked up the courage and read The Day of The Triffids. I didn't have any preconceived notions as to what it was about so I was shocked when the world was blinded. I stayed up until the early hours of the morning reading it - I couldn't put it down before finishing it because I was certain to have nightmares. The next day I was strangely subdued - it's not often that a book affects me in that way. I can't express how pleased I am that I've read The Day of the Triffids - I feel awfully sorry for anyone who hasn't. Not that I'm in a hurry to read it again. I think I'll read it every decade so that it has the same affect on me each time. It is definitely on my top ten of books, and I've read a lot of books...
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