Post by rvm45 on Jan 15, 2012 12:20:35 GMT -6
How many have read this book?
Never mind the cheesy movie that was made from it.
This is an old-time classic SF story from the 40's or 50's. I first read it in 1977.
There are two distinct story lines going at the same time--though I think the movie chumbled them together.
There are Triffids(a corruption of "Tripod").
The omniscient narrator at the beginning of the story reveals that Triffids are a product of Soviet Genetic Engineering.
They produce an oil that is even better than Sperm Oil for fine lubrication, and it also has myriad medicinal uses.
Although a full grown Triffid can weigh a ton or two, their seeds are exceptionally tiny and light.
A spy, sent to steal some of the seeds from the top secret Soviet Triffid farms is shot down while still in Soviet airspace. The seeds scatter far and wide.
Within a few years, Triffids are Growing all over the World.
There are all sorts of cracked-brain theories about where they originated--but except for a few genetic engineers--who aren't talking--no one really knows.
They appear on the scene while the View-Point character is a small child. He's one of the first people stung by a Triffid--even before folks are clued-in that they're dangerous.
Consequently, he has some immunity to Triffid stings--but little is made of the fact.
Okay, a Triffid looks like a truncated tree. It has three root/legs that it can walk on--though they are very slow and ponderous. A Triffid is hollow inside. They have a big long stinger up top--like a long bullwhip--and the ends secrete Neurotoxins.
Triffids have neither brain, nor sensory organs. They are blind, but they can hear, smell and taste. They have little clackers about where a man'd genitalia would be--and somehow they communicate with each other.
They like to kill something with their stinger, then hang around till it rots and they can "Eat" it. (Stingers are deadly, but not well able to either lift or tear.)
Somehow a Triffid knows that men without eyesight are easy prey, and somehow they unerringly direct their lash at a man's eyes.
There are many Triffid plantations around--because they are very productive chemical producers--and you can milk more, and better chemicals out of them, if you leave the stinger intact.
(Stingers grow back--but not quickly.)
Okay, the second story line--our View-Point character grew up to be a Triffid cultivator. He's struck a glancing blow in the eyes by a Triffid once again.
He ends up in the Hospital blindfolded and recovering from his second large dose of Triffid poison in his life.
That night there is a meteor shower--the most spectacular celestial event of the millennium.....
Only in the morning, everyone who watched the meteor shower is now stone blind.
99.999 Percent of people on Earth are now Blind--
And the Triffids are breaking out of their reservations and running rampant, and complicating things.
Note: The Triffids did not ride in on the meteor shower--nor are they part of an alien invasion.
I think it was L Sprague DeCamp who pointed out that even if you grant the World-Wide Blinding Meteor Shower you grant the blinding meteor shower--the proportion of blinded is waytoo high ...
70% to 80% of the populace blinded would bring about TEOTWAWKI--but not quite like in the book.
Well through the rest of the Book, the hero gets to be one of the few sighted men, in the land of the Blind.
This was set in 50s London--so the amount of Guns scavenged is inconsequential.....
But it is worth imagining yourself stealthily creeping down your hometown streets, and visiting all your favorite Gunstores--and picking up as many ATF Forms as possible, to find some of the good stuff.
"Stealthily"? Yeah. Four or five enterprising Blind men who managed to overpower and bind a sighted fellow, could use him as a human seeing-eye Dog. Slavery.....
Blinding him would be pointless--but he'd be co-dependent on the Blind, if they cut off all his fingers.....
There was a recent movie called "Blindness" It (the blindness) came on suddenly. Apparently only One Woman was spared. Then after everything had gone to hell in a hand-basket, it (the blindness) lifted as mysteriously as it had begun--and virtually simultaneously everywhere.
A Metaphor--some type of Social Commentary--not really a Survival Show.
Anyway--you can play with the idea of near universal Blindness as one more possible Plot.
How about other Universal Handicaps?
I had long played with a plot of near universal stupidity. I mean, what if a plague hit nearly everyone--and left 98% of the people with an IQ of 80?
A single individual can function fairly well with an IQ in the mid-80s; particularly if they are started on remedial training while still young.
It really isn't practical to run an industrial society where virtually everyone has an IQ in the 80s.
Then Stephan King wrote the story about the bad chemicals in the water, that would eventually turn everyone into mindless morons, fit only to sit and drool.....
But the chemicals worked slower on some folks--keeping a fragile hope alive for awhile--mainly to torment.
.....RVM45
Never mind the cheesy movie that was made from it.
This is an old-time classic SF story from the 40's or 50's. I first read it in 1977.
There are two distinct story lines going at the same time--though I think the movie chumbled them together.
There are Triffids(a corruption of "Tripod").
The omniscient narrator at the beginning of the story reveals that Triffids are a product of Soviet Genetic Engineering.
They produce an oil that is even better than Sperm Oil for fine lubrication, and it also has myriad medicinal uses.
Although a full grown Triffid can weigh a ton or two, their seeds are exceptionally tiny and light.
A spy, sent to steal some of the seeds from the top secret Soviet Triffid farms is shot down while still in Soviet airspace. The seeds scatter far and wide.
Within a few years, Triffids are Growing all over the World.
There are all sorts of cracked-brain theories about where they originated--but except for a few genetic engineers--who aren't talking--no one really knows.
They appear on the scene while the View-Point character is a small child. He's one of the first people stung by a Triffid--even before folks are clued-in that they're dangerous.
Consequently, he has some immunity to Triffid stings--but little is made of the fact.
Okay, a Triffid looks like a truncated tree. It has three root/legs that it can walk on--though they are very slow and ponderous. A Triffid is hollow inside. They have a big long stinger up top--like a long bullwhip--and the ends secrete Neurotoxins.
Triffids have neither brain, nor sensory organs. They are blind, but they can hear, smell and taste. They have little clackers about where a man'd genitalia would be--and somehow they communicate with each other.
They like to kill something with their stinger, then hang around till it rots and they can "Eat" it. (Stingers are deadly, but not well able to either lift or tear.)
Somehow a Triffid knows that men without eyesight are easy prey, and somehow they unerringly direct their lash at a man's eyes.
There are many Triffid plantations around--because they are very productive chemical producers--and you can milk more, and better chemicals out of them, if you leave the stinger intact.
(Stingers grow back--but not quickly.)
Okay, the second story line--our View-Point character grew up to be a Triffid cultivator. He's struck a glancing blow in the eyes by a Triffid once again.
He ends up in the Hospital blindfolded and recovering from his second large dose of Triffid poison in his life.
That night there is a meteor shower--the most spectacular celestial event of the millennium.....
Only in the morning, everyone who watched the meteor shower is now stone blind.
99.999 Percent of people on Earth are now Blind--
And the Triffids are breaking out of their reservations and running rampant, and complicating things.
Note: The Triffids did not ride in on the meteor shower--nor are they part of an alien invasion.
I think it was L Sprague DeCamp who pointed out that even if you grant the World-Wide Blinding Meteor Shower you grant the blinding meteor shower--the proportion of blinded is waytoo high ...
70% to 80% of the populace blinded would bring about TEOTWAWKI--but not quite like in the book.
Well through the rest of the Book, the hero gets to be one of the few sighted men, in the land of the Blind.
This was set in 50s London--so the amount of Guns scavenged is inconsequential.....
But it is worth imagining yourself stealthily creeping down your hometown streets, and visiting all your favorite Gunstores--and picking up as many ATF Forms as possible, to find some of the good stuff.
"Stealthily"? Yeah. Four or five enterprising Blind men who managed to overpower and bind a sighted fellow, could use him as a human seeing-eye Dog. Slavery.....
Blinding him would be pointless--but he'd be co-dependent on the Blind, if they cut off all his fingers.....
There was a recent movie called "Blindness" It (the blindness) came on suddenly. Apparently only One Woman was spared. Then after everything had gone to hell in a hand-basket, it (the blindness) lifted as mysteriously as it had begun--and virtually simultaneously everywhere.
A Metaphor--some type of Social Commentary--not really a Survival Show.
Anyway--you can play with the idea of near universal Blindness as one more possible Plot.
How about other Universal Handicaps?
I had long played with a plot of near universal stupidity. I mean, what if a plague hit nearly everyone--and left 98% of the people with an IQ of 80?
A single individual can function fairly well with an IQ in the mid-80s; particularly if they are started on remedial training while still young.
It really isn't practical to run an industrial society where virtually everyone has an IQ in the 80s.
Then Stephan King wrote the story about the bad chemicals in the water, that would eventually turn everyone into mindless morons, fit only to sit and drool.....
But the chemicals worked slower on some folks--keeping a fragile hope alive for awhile--mainly to torment.
.....RVM45
