The Day of the Triffids (1951) by John Wyndham is an entertaining but awkward marriage of scifi silliness and social parable. When almost the entire population goes suddenly blind after watching a weirdly green meteor shower, the human race struggles to survive and behave decently amid chaos and despair. Survival is made harder by the rise of the triffids: towering mobile carnivorous plants genetically engineered to prey on humans. The opening scene of our hero wandering from a hospital into deserted London inspired 28 Days Later, while the brave new world of blindness surely contributed to Jose Saramago’s Blindness.
Shelver's Cove 