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The Midwich Cuckoos

The Midwich Cuckoos AuthorJohn WyndhamCover artistDick HartCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglishGenreScience fictionPublisherMichael Joseph1957Pages239OCLC20458143Preceded byThe Chrysalids Followed byThe Outward Urge
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 been filmed twice as Village of the Damned, with releases in 1960 and 1995. The book has been adapted for radio in 1982, 2003, and 2017.

Plot
Ambulances arrive at two traffic accidents blocking the only roads into the (fictional) British village of Midwich, Winshire. Attempting to approach the village, one ambulanceman becomes unconscious. Suspecting gas poisoning, the army is notified. They discover that a caged canary becomes unconscious upon entering the affected region, but regains consciousness when removed. Further experiments reveal the region to be a hemisphere with a diameter of 2 miles (3.2 km) around the village. Aerial photography shows an unidentifiable silvery object on the ground in the centre of the affected zone.

After one day the effect vanishes, along with the unidentified object, and the villagers wake with no apparent ill effects. Some months later they realise that every woman of child-bearing age is pregnant�even those who are single or not otherwise in relationships with men�with all indications that the pregnancies were caused by xenogenesis during the period of unconsciousness that has come to be referred to as the "Dayout".

When the 31 boys and 30 girls are born they appear normal, except for their unusual, golden eyes, light blonde hair, and pale, silvery skin. These children have none of the genetic characteristics of their mothers. As they grow up, it becomes increasingly apparent that they are, at least in some respects, not human. They possess telepathic abilities, and can control others' actions. The Children (they are referred to with a capital C) have two distinct group minds: one for the boys, and another for the girls. Their physical development is accelerated compared with that of humans; upon reaching the age of nine, they appear to be sixteen-year-olds.

The Children protect themselves as much as possible using a form of mind-control. One young man who accidentally hits a Child in the hip while driving a car is made to drive into a wall and kill himself. A bull that chased the Children is forced into a pond to drown. The villagers form a mob and try to burn down the Midwich Grange where the Children are taught and live, but the Children make the villagers attack each other.

The Military Intelligence department learns that the same phenomenon has occurred in four other parts of the world, including an Inuit settlement in the Canadian Arctic, a small township in Australia's Northern Territory, a Mongolian village, and the town of Gizhinsk in eastern Russia, northeast of Okhotsk. The Inuit killed the newborn Children, sensing they were not their own, and the Mongolians killed the Children and their mothers. The Australian babies had all died within a few weeks, suggesting that something may have gone wrong with the xenogenesis process. The Russian town was recently "accidentally" destroyed by the Soviet government, using an "atomic cannon" from a range of 50�60 miles.

The Children are aware of the threat against them, and use their power to prevent any aeroplanes from flying over the village. During an interview with a Military Intelligence officer, the Children explain that to solve the problem they must be destroyed. They explain it is not possible to kill them unless the entire village is bombed, which would result in civilian deaths. The Children present an ultimatum: they want to migrate to a secure location, where they can live unharmed. They demand aeroplanes from the government.

An elderly, educated, Midwich resident (Gordon Zellaby) realises the Children must be killed as soon as possible. As he has only a few weeks left to live due to a heart condition, he feels an obligation to do something. He has acted as a teacher of and mentor to the Children, and they regard him with as much affection as they can have for any human, permitting him to approach them more closely than they allow others. One evening, he hides a bomb in his projection equipment while showing the Children a film about the Greek islands. Zellaby sets off the bomb, killing himself and all of the Children.

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