Much of the action takes place ‘offstage’, and is reported by the characters at second hand, almost in the manner of a Greek tragedy: for much of the time, the reader learns about what is happening indirectly, rather than actually ‘witnessing’ events. In fact, it is something rather different. On the basis of this summary, The Midwich Cuckoos might sound like an action-packed sci-fi yarn: sinister, mind-controlling aliens attack a peaceful English village, and engage in a violent struggle for survival. Ultimately, Zellaby decides he must do the same: he hides a bomb in his projection equipment, and detonates it while showing the children an educational film, killing himself and all of the children. While most have died, the Soviet Union has destroyed its own brood when it became apparent that the children’s powers were too much for it to control.

Meanwhile, Zellaby learns from the Ministry about the existence of other villages with similar groups of children. However, there is a series of increasingly violent encounters with the villagers, in which the children telepathically force their attackers to turn their weapons on themselves. For the most part, the children remain silent about their motivations. Eventually, they abandon the homes of their adoptive parents for a school run by the Ministry of Defence, where they are taught by a local man, Professor Gordon Zellaby. The children develop unnaturally quickly, and they can communicate telepathically with each other: as one learns something, so do the others. They all give birth on the same day and their children share an unusual appearance, including glowing golden eyes, pale skin and platinum blond hair. When they come round several hours later, they seem unaffected, but gradually all women of child-bearing age in the village are discovered to be pregnant. The action begins when all the inhabitants of the small English village of Midwich suddenly fall unconscious. But, like Golding, Wyndham is primarily concerned with fundamental questions about the future of the human race – questions for which the figure of the child provides a useful and challenging focus. The fictional world of John Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoos, published in 1957, is a very long way from that of Lord of the Flies.

The midwich cuckoos by john wyndham