The Day of the Triffids Audiobook By John Wyndham cover art

The Day of the Triffids

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The Day of the Triffids

By: John Wyndham
Narrated by: Kingsley Ben-Adir
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About this listen

In 1951 John Wyndham published his novel The Day of the Triffids to moderate acclaim. Fifty-two years later, this horrifying story is a science-fiction classic, touted by The Times (London) as having 'all the reality of a vividly realised nightmare'.

Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses the most spectacular meteorite shower England has ever seen. Removing his bandages the next morning, he finds masses of sightless people wandering the city. He soon meets Josella, another lucky person who has retained her sight, and together they leave the city, aware that the safe, familiar world they knew a mere 24 hours before is gone forever.

But to survive in this post-apocalyptic world, one must survive the Triffids, strange plants that years before began appearing all over the world. The Triffids can grow to over seven feet tall, pull their roots from the ground to walk and kill a man with one quick lash of their poisonous stingers. With society in shambles, they are now poised to prey on humankind. Wyndham chillingly anticipates bio-warfare and mass destruction, 50 years before their realisation, in this prescient account of Cold War paranoia.

About the author: John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris was born in 1903, the son of a barrister. He tried a number of careers including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, and started writing short stories, intended for sale, in 1925. From 1930 to 1939 he wrote stories of various kinds under different names, almost exclusively for American publications, while also writing detective novels. During the war he was in the Civil Service and then the Army. In 1946 he went back to writing stories for publication in the USA and decided to try a modified form of science fiction, a form he called 'logical fantasy'.

©1951 John Wyndham (P)2021 Audible, Ltd
Classics Dystopian Fiction Science Fiction England Scary

What listeners say about The Day of the Triffids

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Better Than the Movie

I thoroughly enjoyed this book which was different from the movie. In my opinion, even though I love the movie, I enjoyed this book more. The narrator was perfect and conveyed the right voice for each character.

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Great story - shame about the narration.

A brilliant novel of an apocalyptic future that is, by now, very well known. So many have taken inspiration from Wyndham. I’d never read it before and am very pleased to have listened to the thrilling journey of Bill Mason.

The narration, however, was really lazy. Having heard numerous great performances I was so surprised that this one was so unrehearsed. Kingsley frequently reads voices in the wrong accent before realising and correcting himself. He has little ability to predict punctuation and sentence structure and almost no library of dialects at his command. You either get a bad Michael Caine impersonation for about 10 different characters or a standard middle class English accent for everyone else.
I realise that Wyndhams writing is rather ‘Jolly good old boy’, so making it more contemporary in performance is a good idea - but this feels like amateur work. Not in the same league as so many great readers on audible. Such a shame - fortunately the story is good enough to survive it.

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Classic

While the pacing is a little uneven, you come to care for the main characters and their plight. The dashes of philosophical musings throughout are just as relevant today as they ever were.

Per usual, humans are part of why the world gets darker before there is light.

I did want some more time in the ending to close things off but it was a lovely read.

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Classic Excellent

It has been decades since I’ve found such a fine example of my old, favorite sub-genre of apocalypse fiction. It ranks with Alas, Babylon and Earth Abides, Lucifer’s Hammer, Canticle for Leibowitz, and other classics. I wonder if much of this zombie nonsense was ripped off from this excellent source. I suppose it is all Greener than You Think, Albert Wiener! ;-)

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Captivating

I truly and deeply enjoyed this listen, looking forward to more from the author. Narrator did a wonderful job on voicing all the characters in the story

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Great early SciFi!

A very engaging if somewhat predictable story with some outstanding prose in parts. It was a little hard to differentiate the change of characters as the narrator/reader’s voice was very similar for all, but still a great and fun listen!

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Apocalypse 101

This is not my favorite Wyndham book. Additionally, we have here one of the WORST narrators ever. (Don’t get me started on him; trying to write about the book.) I carried on as it became clear how special this book is. Here is a list.

Apocalypse
Alien(ish) menace
Survivors find each other and try to collect necessities
Run into various types, some join, many try to rob
Find a new place and start building new life
Unauthorized armed militia

Apocalypse 101. The first. How many novels/movies/tv shows have used these elements? Pretty much all of them. Expected, inevitable, in homage? I really appreciate Wyndham’s books, especially considering when they were written. I would suggest reading this one, rather than listening. Or listen to The Chrysalids instead.

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Good story but outstanding narration

Enjoyed listening to this story, but it was the narration which really took it to another level. Kingsley Ben-Adir’s narration really is more voice acting than narration, and despite the many passages in the book with different characters speaking in turn, I could always tell who was who because each had a distinct “voice.” Disappointed to see that this talented narrator has done so few other audiobooks!

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Nice read of human survival

What a great novel that has definitely influenced other novels along the way as well as survival movies about end of days

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Great story with a good narrator.

I've always enjoyed this story and Kingsley's read here is a good one. He didn't create a lot of differentiation between the characters, but it was a good read nonetheless. John Wyndam's story of blindness and killer plants run amok is still as engaging today as when I discovered the miniseries adaptation on PBS years ago.

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