The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham - Dystopian future Sci/Fi

This is a great dystopian story and like all John Wyndham; so well written. This is my third favourite of John Wyndham novels. Its not that it does not make the grade, because it does. Its just that The Midwich Cuckoos and The Chrysalids were so fabulously out there. The Day of the Triffids is too, so my advise is to read all three. You'll not be disappointed in any of these sci/fi gems.

The Day of the Triffids gives us a chilling dystopian world were Triffid plants are being cultivated for their oil and so on. The plants are dangerous because they can move and have a lethal sting. Only specialists can farm them. 

Then a meteor shower cripples the world population. Over night everyone who witnessed the comet display becomes blind by the following morning. Civilisation is at an end and nothing can function. Only a handful of people, who never saw the meteor display, can see. They are so few in number that they cannot do anything for the multi-millions of people who are blind. 

The cultivated triffids brake free from the confines in the agriculture industry, which no longer functions. As said, the plants can move and have a sting. They can also consume dead flesh. The blind population are a feast awaiting triffid attention.

The world is turned upside down and the survivors with sight have their work cut out for them. Only the strong and ruthless can survive. The millions of blind are of little use.

Now you get the picture?

The Death of Grass - A Dystopian World Novel by John Christopher

The ultimate dystopian world novel. It was written and set in Britain during the 1950s so it has a retro flavour about it. All forms of grass are becoming infected by the Chung Li virus and gradually this blight is spreading around the world. Grass is dying - all forms. Even wheat, barley and other life essential crops. Starvation and mayhem ensue.

Britain is a small island and we see the rapid disintegration of society and the governments dreadful response to the growing dilemma as a small bunch of people try to leave London and head north to England's Lake district where the group leader's brother has an enclosed farm within the mountains of Cumbria. Here he grows sugar beat and keeps pigs. Suddenly the land is a prized asset but trying to reach a destination across an island with desperate bands of people battling for survival is another thing altogether. 

This was my favorite John Wyndham story until The Midwich Cuckoos. The Chrysalids is a story set in a dystopian future around a coastal area of Canada (I think) The people struggle to live in a post apocalyptic world. They have regressed back in time and live like the old Pilgrim Fathers of America. They farm and ride about on horses and are deeply religious. The society is of an extreme christian and fundamental belief. They indoctrinate all that God sent tribulation because the old people were evil and made atomic bombs and machines - things that were abominations.

When babies are born, they are strictly examined to make sure there is no mutation upon the infant's anatomy. If there is, the child is taken to the fringes away from the Good lands. Here the mutant infant, if it survives, is brought up by the Outcast mutants.

Into this fundamental Christian society, a group of infants slip through the net. They are not normal but have no physical defects. Yet they are telepathic. It is something they must keep secret or risk being outcast and sent to the Fringes among the mutants where the girls are wickedly sterilised before being sent away.

It is a moving and very clever story with some great and very tense moments. I can't think why it has never been made into a film.

Judge Dredd of 2000 AD

9p - Earth money. I remember my old school friend Philip Sullivan laughing his head off at the front page of 2000 AD - a comic that was; 'IN ORBIT EVERY MONDAY.'

I would always be buying comics as a youngster. The Dandy and the Beano were among my favourites. Also, there were other names like; Beezer, Topper, Cor and Knockout. 

I used to read them avidly as a kid. They were my little world where I would often escape to, upstairs in my bedroom out of sight and mind. Out they would come - my growing array of wonderful British comics. 

As I started going to secondary (high) school. I began reading the endless war stories that were out - like; Commando, Battle, Warlord and Victor. 

I remember the German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt complaining about the BBC news, next to our Prime Minister James Callaghan, about these comic strips that were staunchly dedicated to loving our war heroes and demonising anything German or Japanese. 

It was the seventies and as a kid growing up through the sixties and seventies, the war was still very prevalent.  

Then along came a new one called 2000 AD - 9p - Earth Money and Philip Sullivan laughing. I remember reading one of the strips about this futuristic policeman called Judge Dredd. Wow! was this guy the complete works. He diced with death about 10 times a day and would sentence his criminals on the spot. What with all the Mary Whitehouse things going on at the time, I thought the strip would get banned. They banned the American Civil war cards of the sixties because they were bloodthirsty.

The strip that Philip and I were reading was about a villainous assassin with a huge great F*#K OFF rifle that fired a plasma burst or ray. It engulfed the victim in a ball of heat that made them scream "Yeaaaaah' and then there would be a pile of ashes and a smouldering skull and bones. 

Our victims were Judges riding their huge motorbikes through the dystopian city of the future somewhere in America. Of course, Judge Dredd is called in tracking down the serial marksman. I thought it was great. There were other comic strips too, but most of all I remember the infamous Judge Dredd.

It is hard to believe how successful the comic strip became with two movies portraying the character and countless graphic novels too. I would not have thought the character would have last as long as it has, exceeding the years 2000 AD by far. The year 2000 seemed a long way off back in the mid-seventies to a 14-year-old.