2025 Reading Challenge 06 The Day of the Triffids
I’m convinced I’ve read this book before, the John Wyndham classic is ingrained in us, or is it? I found myself discovering a fairly new story of grim post-apocalyptic survival.
There are some excellent initial scenes as the protagonist, Bill Masen, awakens in the hospital after an eye operation, unaware of the devastation around him, his gradual discovery of the horrors and their effect on the population of London are well described and lead us into his journey to… happiness?
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
The book starts to layer in the social implications of the breakdown of society, including an impassioned plea for …polygamy! This is sandwiched between surviving in London and then escaping London.
The more I read the more I compared this to the 1962 film of the same name, still a firm favourite even if it takes a lot of liberties with the book; a scientist trapped in a lighthouse, a sojourn into France, the main enemy being the Triffids rather than humans scrabbling for survival.
The book is not as exciting as I remember the film. In the book, the Triffids form a background to the struggles of humans trying to find food and water, avoid disease and feeble attempt to shape society. The vegetable horrors soon come into their own in the last part, as they attack a South Downs farm aka a French villa in the film.
Things are not always rosy reading, some slightly sexist and condescending passages, very much representative of the society of the time which needs a level of acceptance to get through it.
Overall an enjoyable trip down memory lane, when in the 70s the Triffids fought against the Daleks for supremacy to become the nation’s most feared monster.
I rated it 7.7 out of 10.
TTRPG Thoughts:
I wrote and ran a Cthulhu Hack scenario for Grog Love (a London con) featuring Triffids. Nursery Crymean, based on the Genesis album Nursery Cryme. It was set in the Crimean War of the 1850s the party had to investigate strange goings on at the Royal Horticultural Society at Chiswick Gardens before boarding the Orient Express to the Black Sea and onward to Crimea and the Battle of Inkerman, then to snipers, underground caves and a return to London. Yep, I threw a lot into this, to much for three hours of gaming!
I remember having a lot of fun with the Triffids, using a sound effect to mirror their communication as the PCs blundered through a darkened valley and into the caves. There is something primal about the Triffids, some innate instinct and hive intelligence making them a real challenge, with a weapon that brings certain death in the blink of an eye.
Another aspect of the book is a reference or thoughts on how to set up a post-apocalyptic Britain. A lot of useful elements; how different societies reform e.g. a feudal seigneury(!), the descriptions of houses succumbing to greenery and decay, the perfect defensible retreat, all marvellous stuff.