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Title: Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, Jeremy Cole ISBN: 1-901768-48-1 Publisher: CSA Telltapes Pub. Date: 15 November, 1999 Format: Audio Cassette

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Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (10 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: A quiet english village sleeps... and sleeps
Comment: The Midwich Cuckoos is a tale of alien invasion. One day the whole town of Midwich falls into a sleep. When they awaken a day later, every woman of childbearing age is pregnant. Nine months later somewhat odd children with the power to control minds have been born.
This is a very interesting and frightening idea, but curiously, there is no suspense to the book at all. The characters just don't seem to react to the circumstances. Odd things happen and they just shrug their shoulders and go on about their business, resigned to their fate. And no one outside the village seems to notice! A major part of the problem is that the narrator isn't involved, he just chronicles what happens with a vague sense of disquiet, but nothing more. It makes you want to reach into the book and give these people a shake and tell them to wake up. Maybe it's a British stiff upper lip kind of thing, I don't know, but the result is a story that is interesting, but never involving.

Rating: 5
Summary: outstanding science fiction written to the highest standard
Comment: Wydham takes a look at a very interesting question: what happens with the entire human race is threatened, but our social conventions, politics, and institutions prevent us from saving ourselves? The odd title is a reference to the way cuckoo birds place their eggs in the nests of other birds who mistake the eggs for their own - but even after they hatch the surrogate mothers are compelled by their natures to take care of the babies. In Midwich, at a time when England regarded itself as the most civilized political community the world had ever known (hey, it probably still thinks that way!), the locals find themselves unable to mistreat a brood of alien, mind-controlling children, even though the fate of the world is at steak. Lot's of good narrative and entertaining philosophical conversations among the characters made this a truly great book, in the tradition of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" or Orwell's "1984".

Rating: 4
Summary: immaculate conceptions in Midwich?
Comment: The Midwich Cuckoos is a very interesting, if somewhat dated, story. We have a quaint English village with all its women of child-bearing age suddenly (..spontaneously!) becoming pregnant, including virgins. Divine intervention? Well, let us say there was some intervention from something beyond this world. Curiously, the folks of Midwich carry on with the births of these children. However these children soon exhibit rather sinister traits, and Midwich soon finds itself overwhelmed.

While certainly a fascinating read, The Midwich Cuckoos has a somewhat dated feel. Certainly alien invasions and the raising of alien beings wouldn't go down well with most folks nowadays. And unlike other Wyndham novels I fail to see any underlying social message here (..other than don't raise kids that aren't humans?). Still, Wyndham is a clever writer. And The Midwich Cuckoos is one of his better efforts.

Bottom lines: strange, disturbing, and not terribly believable. But certainly an interesting read.