From the Publisher
Richard and Janet Gayford happened to spend the night of September 26 in London, not returning to their home in the village of Midwich until the following day. Only they have difficulty getting back into Midwich, and -- in ways that are difficult to isolate -- the village does not seem to be the same place it was the day before. The nightmare that descends on Midwich has dire implications for the rest of the world, sowing the seeds of a master race of ruthless, inhuman creatures bent on total domination.
John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos, published in 1957, is better known by the more sensational title of its two film adaptations, Village of the Damned. In the author's typically elegant and calm manner, the novel explores the arrival on earth of a collective intelligence that threatens to eliminate humankind. The eerie change that befalls Midwich manifests itself in strange ways. On the surface, everything seems normal but there is a vague sense of dread everywhere and in everyone. Also, suddenly and inexplicably after the night of September 26, every woman of the appropriate age is pregnant. They will give birth at the same time, to children who are all alike -- their eyes mesmerizing, devoid of emotion, innately possessed with unimaginable mental powers and formidable native intelligence. The children develop into an unstoppable force, capable of anything, far outstripping mere humans in guile and cunning. The threat to the human race is unmistakable.
Wyndham writes his fantastic story in a precise, almost bemused manner that sometimes seems almost droll. London's Evening Standard called The Midwich Cuckoos "humane and urbane with a lightly sophisticated wit putting the ideas into shape." The Spectator noted that Wyndham "provides just that right amount of semi-realistic data ... to soothe his readers into a mood of acceptance, and his poker-faced attitude towards the strange and improbable events which he records is also exactly calculated.
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