In the process, he meets Coker again, who now acknowledges that his plan was doomed to fail. A mysterious sickness begins killing people indiscriminately, and Bill and Josella are freed from their duties after their groups die-but not before Bill sees a man named Torrence murder an sick blind man.īill races to find Josella, whose whereabouts are unknown. He then forces the sighted survivors to each look after a group of blind people. This causes Bill to question everything, but Josella feels it is the only way to ensure humanity’s survival.īefore the group can begin its journey to a safer environment, a man named Coker launches an ambush and takes many sighted people hostage, separating Bill and Josella. They meet a group of survivors, led by Michael Beadley, that formed a society where mandatory procreation will be instituted to repopulate the world with sighted people. Bill and Josella form a bond and a desire to find other sighted people. With no one to hold them in check or dock them, however, the species begins preying on humans.Īs he makes his way through an anarchic London, Bill saves Josella Playton, a sighted woman who is infamous for writing a book about women’s sexual empowerment. However, they were soon farmed for their oils and rendered harmless when their stingers were docked or removed. When these mysterious plants first appeared, they frightened humankind with their deadly stings and ability to walk. Violence and mob mentality ensue as people become increasingly desperate. In the immediate aftermath, sighted people become targets blind people despise them but need them in order to survive. The next morning, most of the world’s population is stricken with unexplained blindness, Anyone who did not watch the comet, like Bill, retain their vision. This event lands him in a London hospital with bandaged eyes, causing him to miss viewing a comet as it passes the earth. William “Bill” Masen, a British biologist, is temporarily blinded at work when he is stung by the venomous plant he is researching known as a triffid.

The triffids book