Soon Masen's followers begin to fall sick and die of an unknown disease. They are each chained to a blind person and assigned to lead a squadron of the blind, collecting food and other supplies, all the while beset by escaped triffids and rival scavengers. The polygamy implicit in Beadley's scheme appalls some group members, especially the religious Miss Durrant-but before this schism can be dealt with, a man named Wilfred Coker stages a fire at the university and kidnaps a number of sighted individuals, including Bill and Josella. Intrigued by a single light on top of the Senate House in an otherwise darkened London, Bill and Josella discover a group of sighted survivors led by a man named Beadley, who plans to establish a colony in the countryside. He wanders through a chaotic London full of blind inhabitants and slowly becomes enamoured of wealthy novelist Josella Playton, whom he rescues after discovering her being forcibly used as a guide by a blind man. After unbandaging his eyes he finds the hospital in chaos, with staff and patients without sight.
The next morning, he learns that the light from the unusual display has rendered any who watched it blind (later in the book, Masen speculates that the "meteor shower" may have been orbiting satellite weapons, triggered accidentally). During his recovery he is told of an unexpected green meteor shower. The narrative begins with Bill Masen in hospital, his eyes bandaged after having been splashed with triffid poison from a stinger. Because of the excellent industrial quality of an oil produced by and obtained from the triffids, there is heavy triffid cultivation around the world. Due to his background, Masen suspects they were bioengineered in the U.S.S.R. The protagonist is Bill Masen, a biologist who has made his living working with triffids-tall, venomous, carnivorous plants capable of locomotion. In 2021, the novel was one of six classic science fiction novels by British authors selected by Royal Mail to feature on a series of UK postage stamps. It was the inspiration for the zombie movie 28 Days Later. It was nominated for the International Fantasy Award in 1952, and in 2003 the novel was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read. The story has been made into the 1962 feature film of the same name, three radio drama series (in 1957, 19) and two TV series (in 19). Although Wyndham had already published other novels using other pen name combinations drawn from his real name, this was the first novel published as "John Wyndham".
After most people in the world are blinded by an apparent meteor shower, an aggressive species of plant starts killing people. The Day of the Triffids is a 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by the English science fiction author John Wyndham.
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