The author of The Day of the Triffids, a fantasy of the future …, has been rather too fertile in invention; he predicates two thundering improbabilities, the artificial breeding of ambulant plants seven feet high, and an aerial missile which gets out of control and blinds the whole human race, with a few lucky exceptions. A better book could have been written about either of these ingenious ideas. In addition, the viewpoint is that of a thorough Londoner; we are left in doubt about what happens to the beasts of the countryside, and the cockney survivors seem to pick up farming much too easily. But otherwise this story deserves nothing but praise. The language is excellent, and the description of London filled with the groping blind, seeking food in shop-windows and bearing away tins of paint instead, has all the qualities of a vividly-realized nightmare.

"Nightmares and Realities," in...