Isabelle M M থেকে Kuyu Mahallesi, 10440 Bigadiç/Balıkesir, Turkey
My brothers still remember me reading this to them.
Seen 28 Days Later? I Am Legend? Or even reality TV programme The Colony? If you have, the post-apocalyptic world in The Day of the Triffids will not seem foreign at all: An 'alien' or unknown force sweeps the earth, killing its inhabitants. Survivors are forced to abandon existing conceptions of life and civilisation and revert to living like our ancestors - in tribes. The aliens in this novel are seven-foot tall walking plants that can kill a man with a powerful lash of its poisonous stingers. These plants began appearing on earth years ago and were cultivated for its superior oils. The triffids, however, are not the benign green leaves that end up in your salad. After killing creatures with its stingers, they feed on the rotting carcasses of its victims. It's not entirely something that man can't master, though - we can kill tens of thousands of people with the push of a button; what's a couple of green poles, right? Barring the occasional accidents, the triffids posed no problem at all. But one night, a spectacular green meteor shower took place. Something that curious human beings the world over feasted their eyes on. And just like that, everyone became blind. They became stumbling adults - useless in many ways - and the entire planet became a meat market for the triffids. What is astonishing about this book, however, is the fact that this was published in 1951 but it still reads like a contemporary science fiction novel. Truly one of the heavyweights of the genre.