Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Jack Finney

 

This classic demonstrates the axiom that in sci fi the idea is everything.  'The Body Snatchers' started out as a magazine serial, then it was refined into book form.  Then came the first movie and the book was renamed, then it was updated for a second movie a quarter of a century later, which is this version.  It all makes no difference.  Smalltown USA is infiltrated by pod plants that turn into exact facsimiles of whatever they find themselves close to - other plants, discarded trash, human beings.  It fundamentally similar to The Day of the Triffids but more claustrophobic (the facsimile people can seal off the township).  Another neat twist is that the voices of science and reason - an absolute necessity in alien life form fiction - are themselves facsimiles.  The best part of the movies - when Kevin McCarthy runs up against a speeding car - is here too, and indeed is one of the best-written sections of the novel.  All in all, it's great fun.

The World in Winter - John Christopher

John Christopher has often been likened to John Wyndham. Indeed, some people seem to think the two are one and the same, especially given the number of pseudonyms they both used. In fact John Christopher was Sam Youd (1922-2012) aka Stanley Winchester, Hilary Ford. Peter Graaf etc. Christopher was undoubtedly influenced by Wyndham (for Tripods see Triffids) but specialised in man-made catastrophe whereas Wyndham favoured space invaders.

Christopher is best known for his climate change novels, of which this is one. The title says it all: the northern hemisphere is plunged into a new ice age due to a decline in solar radiation. The major powers decide to pack up and head south. Those left behind turn feral through necessity. The emigrants likewise face disaster. The former colonies in Africa are perfectly willing to accept their former oppressors, but only as menials and slaves. The banking system collapses so all the money the Brits brought with them evaporates.

It is a great idea and even now, more than half a century after it was written, the resonances are still there, Christopher's problem is that he can't bring his ideas to life through his characters. His main characters here are preoccupied with their suburban menage a trois and unable to engage with their climatic enemy as much as one would like. Perhaps the scale of the disaster is just too big and humanity simply cannot win.

This is where Christopher falls short of Wyndham. I remember reading one of the Tripod series for young adults, probably the late prequel When the Tripods Came (1988) and the problem was the same. That said, there are some fabulous moments - I absolutely adored the idea of colonising the south coast of England by hovercraft, which of course can skim over the ice sheets blocking the Channel. It works even better fifty years later when hovercraft have become as redundant as traction engines. Perhaps that's something we should reconsider in this era of global warming.

The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham

We all know Day of the Triffids, right?  It's a classic, adapted for film and TV on a regular basis.  I certainly thought I knew it - man-eating plants invade Planet Earth, send everyone blind, etc.  How wrong was I.  In fairness, Wyndham was also wrong in that it's not about triffids at all and, whilst they keep cropping up to string the occasional passer-by, they don't really become a threat to the survival of humankind until the very end of the novel.  What this actually is is a post-apocalyptic survivor story.  A spectacular meteor shower brings everyone out into the streets to watch, then blinds them with its brilliance.  Our hero, Bill Masen, wakes up in hospital to find everyone gone.  He has not been blinded because he was already blind - stung by a triffid, an occupational hazard in that he is a researcher into triffids which have been bred for years (genetically modified) for their various useful by-products.  Triffids have developed idiosyncrasies like walking, and they always wear poisonous, though it's GM which has made them gigantic and thus potentially lethal, but it is only when humankind can no longer maintain their paddocks and cages that they go on the rampage.

Bill, his eyesight recovered, joins up with other survivors and traverses the south of England in search of a bolt-hole.  Meanwhile the triffids multiply, organise and attack.  In many ways it was the evolution of the triffids which held my attention through all the quest sludge; that and the way Wyndham evokes the paranoia of the immediate postwar era - the nuclear threat, the disinclination of the authorities to abandon control of the population and, fascinatingly, satellite technology which provides a surprising twist at the end.

We call Wyndham a sci-fi writer but I like his description of what he does - 'logical fantasy'.  That's what The Day of the Triffids is precisely.  It remains a classic and we should all know it better.