The Day of the Triffids

The book is quick and easy: the main character witty and pleasant. Don't expect anything but an easy read and you'll have a good time. The plot is unique and proceeds in realistic ways; I was not at all displeased by the plot line.

Let me preface this by saying that I love fiction of "end of the world" syndrome. If you're a fan of the genre, you'll like this book. The author is an Englishman but his writing style is not hard to read and enjoyable. The plot is your basic "something happens to shake things up and how does the protagonist survive". That being said, the author does a good job of it; gives you plenty of creeps without being gory. I'd recommend it and will see what else is by John Wyndham.

Well, this is the book that started it. I really enjoyed this book. Naturally it goes further into the reason as to why the "Triffids" started in the first place. However, I must say that the movie starring Howard Keel ("Showboat") was excellent as well.

This is a wonderful suspenseful book about the end of the world and the dilemma of those that survive it. Although it gets side tracked on occasion, this is a book you simply can't put down. This particular version has several spelling mistakes and typos but nothing that will hinder the enjoyment of the book. Read away and enjoy!

Fabulous classic science fiction! The story is gripping from the first page and you won't want to put it down. I read it years ago and my 20 something son has just read it and he also found it gripping and could not put it down. A book that has spanned many generations since its first printing.

A good book with much food for thought. Tightly plotted and well-written. The proper English was a bit clunky for me and lacked the dry humor of other British sci-fi authors, but overall, I can see why it's a sci-fi classic.

I have always liked this story. It was realistic if such an event were to really happen. There have been some film adaptations which, for the most part, don't give the written version much credit. Reading the book is much better than watching the film.

The Day of the Triffids shows its age, particularly in its treatment of the female characters, but is still worth reading because it informed so much of today's science fiction writing. On the whole the characters are long-winded by today's standards and spend more time discussing philosophy and literaure than people in a similar situation would likely do. The triffids themselves are a brilliant bit of imagination by the author. Check it out.

One of the originals in an eventual long series of apocalyptic novels that pervaded in the late 50's and early 60's. A very poor TV rendition left me thinking this might a pretty corny story. Definitely not!

I loved the opening, and overall thought it was a good book - the descriptions were good, the writing was snappy and engaging - however, by the end, I felt unfullfilled by it. The opening was super, very visual, getting you involved with the main character immediately. However, as the book continued, there were long diversions from the plot development that wound up going nowhere - such as the time Bill Mason (the main charactor and narrator) gets waylaid by a group and he gets separated from his female interest. This, as I said, did not contribute much to the story, as this group kind of just fizzles and now, Bill embarks on a nearly hopeless search for the woman from whom he became separated. This would not be so bad a plot development, but I was never convinced that Bill had that much feeling for her - nothing approaching passion - nothing approaching the kind of devotion that such a hopless search under dire and perilous circumstances would warrant.

Additionally, there were so many details that were unaccounted for - how in heck did all those blind people take care of their sanitation? It might be nitpicking, it might seem low class of me to think of it, but I always look for this in a book. If people in books and movies never go to the bathroom, it detracts from the realism. Let's face it - all men and women on this planet - as well as every other organism, is no more than 2 - 3 hours at most from their next whizz. How did they ever wash? Or get their hair cut? Or get shoes or clothing? They were only trying to get food most of the time - very little else. I love these details - it draws me into a story - makes me almost feel a part of things. Without them, I become detached from a story. As far as sanitation, I guess at the time the book was written (1951) it would have been scandelous to account for it but hell, the Earth was ending. It's ok to kill off millions, but not ok to account for their hygene? Nah, the real end of the Earth would be very very very very much worse than Wyndham had it. P. C. Jersild had it right in After the Flood. The real END would be nearly unbearable, not a mere inconvenience. Then, the triffids themselves were less terrifying than they should have been. They just didn't arrouse the kind of horror that they might have. So - a good book - deserving of its reputation, yet, it falls a bit short.

Just my humble opinion.

Fantastic book, just needs a real publisher with proofreaders on staff.
Check this out...
"The Tynsham people had the means to fetch supplies was in London. A couple of loads would not make a great deal from towns where there was no sign of the disease that of difference to them either way, so in the end we went as we had come."
Yikes.
No author's work, let alone a great one, should be treated this way.
Do it right, or not at all.

Good pacing. Very different than today's books as all the women were good for were talking and having babies. If it were written today there would have been a giant battle with women prominently in the fight. But it wasn't.

Good pacing. Very different than today's books as all the women were good for were talking and having babies. If it were written today there would have been a giant battle with women prominently in the fight. But it wasn't.

The errors found in the kindle version are not by the original author. Rather, the spelling and grammatical errors are from whatever program transcribed the paper text into electronic form. Many of the errors will be a word like "naive" that is incorrectly spelt "hal-e" or something like that, where the program was approximating the figures.

I do recommend reading the book itself and hope the mistakes in this kindle version do not deter others from enjoying it.

The writing is acceptable but nothing special. It does give insights into how different people might react to difficult and horrendous situations. How some will adapt, some won't or can't, and some will revert to authoritarian order. The world changed literally overnight and some of those that survived had to adapt quickly and spontaneously and our protagonists did. There isn't any speculation on what actually occurred until late in the story. But it doesn't really clear things up. There is a slight problem with continuity as I couldn't always tell at which point in the story I was sometimes it seemed I was jumping back and forth in time. There was also the second chapter which was an explanation of Traffics but pretty much made it confusing. A pretty good story despite the lack of any clear resolution at the end.