The Midwich Cuckoos

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John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos (Paperback, 1957, Ballantine Books)

mass market paperback

Published April 7, 1957 by Ballantine Books.

ISBN:
978-0-345-29911-6
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3 stars (1 review)

The Midwich Cuckoos is a 1957 science fiction novel written by the English author John Wyndham. It tells the tale of an English village in which the women become pregnant by brood parasitic aliens. The book has been praised by many critics, including the dramatist Dan Rebellato, who called it a searching novel of moral ambiguities, and the novelist Margaret Atwood, who called the book Wyndham's chef d'oeuvre. It has adapted into several media, such as film (twice as Village of the Damned, in 1960 and 1995), radio (1982, 2003, and 2017) and a TV series in 2022.

29 editions

Review of 'The Midwich Cuckoos' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

Surprisingly dull.

The central idea of a group of telepathic and psychopathic alien children being raised in a sleepy English village while they prepare to replace humanity is great fun, the thought of all those forced pregnancies is genuinely horrifying, and the downbeat end is effective, but...

The framing is really clumsy. The story is narrated by someone who is only loosely involved, has no agency and no real character of his own. His opening line tells you that he and his wife weren’t badly affected by what happens, there are several missing years while he’s off working in Canada during which time interesting things should have been happening, and lots of events are described to him after the fact by other people; all of which robs the whole thing of any tension or excitement.

The most interesting people to follow in this story would have been the women and …