The Midwich Cuckoos

Classic science fiction novel about alien invasion and psychic children

Content warning: abortion, forced pregnancy, self-harm

One of my favourite science fiction books is by this author, and I really like the design of this set. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get the price tag off the front cover which has spoiled the effect somewhat. I was going through my to-read shelf back in December looking for books for my Short Stack Reading Challenge and this one looked ideal. Although I’m familiar with the premise, it has inspired plenty of adaptations and other media, I hadn’t read this one before.

“The Midwich Cuckoos” by John Wyndham is a science fiction novel about a small English village called Midwich. One day, an invisible line encircles the town and everyone within it or who crosses it falls asleep. The next day, everyone wakes up more or less unharmed, except that all the women are pregnant. When they give birth, all the children are strangely similar with light blonde hair and golden eyes. As they grow up at an accelerated rate, the people in the village start to notice some even more unusual traits. With secret government organisations taking an interest, and increasingly serious incidents happening, questions begin to be asked not just about what to do about Midwich, but what to do about humanity.

This was a really interesting book that had an understated, very British, almost bureaucratic tone. A lot of the book is made up of conversations between different people in the town, especially between a young man called Richard and a well-known local author Gordon Zellaby. Richard is charged by a secretive Colonel to keep an eye on the situation, and over the years Richard reports what he sees. This narrative style creates room for a lot of subtle exploration of social issues such as motherhood, abortion and what it means to be human. I was surprised at how well the book has held up over time, and I also liked that despite being set in the UK, the book didn’t have a Western-centric perspective and considered the Earth as a whole which many science fiction books fail to do.

Although I understand why Wyndham chose this narrative style, at times it did feel like the pace was impeded and the text was very conversation heavy. However, the slow burn does lead to an explosive ending.