Classic Science Fiction: 'Day of the Triffids' is dated but haunting

boing
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I pulled Triffids of my mom’s bookshelf as a teenager – thoroughly enjoyed it. I also feel that modern zombie movies (particularly 28 Days Later) have cribbed a LOT from Triffids. The trope of “protagonist wakes up in an abandoned hospital” seems to be especially popular.

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I thought this one was fun:

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Man I loved Wyndham as a kid. Chrysalids was the first novel I read that really stuck it to religious fundamentalists, which was pretty eye-opening growing up in a Catholic house. Sucks that some of his writing hasn’t held up, but it’s to be expected I guess.

The 90s adaptation of Midwich Cuckoos with Allie and Reeve is one of the worst adaptations I’ve seen. Having one of the kids be different and worth saving misses the point of the whole damn novel.

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For a very different (but equally gripping) botanical apocalypse, try John Christopher’s The Death of Grass.

John Christopher is probably more famous for his Tripods YA trilogy, which I remember also being pretty damn dark.

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I read the White Mountains / tripods trilogy to my grade 4 class about 25 years ago… we were all enthralled.

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I remember that one of the books – I think it was the second – was the first book I’d ever read in which a sympathetic and fairly important character dies. I was shocked to my teenage core.

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Based on the brief (spoilerless) articles I’ve found, it sounds like ‘The Chrysalids’ (now on my buy list) is something akin to Greg Bear’s ‘Darwin’s Radio’ series.

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And to nurture your inner arachnaphobe, try Wyndham’s novel “Web”.

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Is “The Chrysalids” still not a cliched pick of high-school English teachers everywhere? Has pedagogy moved on?

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In sixth grade I had Day of the Triffids, the Tripods trilogy and The Machine Gunners as assigned class reading. It was a good year.

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I’ve only seen the BBC miniseries but they just seemed to be a straightforward part of the near-future biofuel industry. “This is how we make ethanol now, great big GMO weeds! What could go wrong?”

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Bill blames genetic engineering. The blindness on strategic “defense” satellites gone awry.

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