Home
/
Fiction
/
The Midwich Cuckoos
The Midwich Cuckoos
Apr 8, 2026 12:45 PM

Author:John Wyndham

The Midwich Cuckoos

FROM THE CLASSIC SCI-FI WRITER AND AUTHOR OF THE CHRYSTALIDS AND THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS

Now a modern reimagining starring Keeley Hawes and Max Beesley available to watch on Sky.

'Exciting, unsettling and technically brilliant' Spectator

In the sleepy English village of Midwich, a mysterious silver object appears and all the inhabitants fall unconscious. A day later the object is gone and everyone awakens unharmed - except that all the women in the village are discovered to be pregnant.

The resultant children of Midwich do not belong to their parents: all are blonde, all are golden eyed. They grow up too fast and their minds exhibit frightening abilities that give them control over others and brings them into conflict with the villagers just as a chilling realisation dawns on the world outside . . .

The Midwich Cuckoos is the classic tale of aliens in our midst, exploring how we respond when confronted by those who are innately superior to us in every conceivable way.

Reviews

Exciting, unsettling and technically brilliant

—— Spectator

A book and a half: stunning, dense, complex, mind-blowing

—— Washington Post

A disconcertingly lovely book...sharp, vivid, utterly persuasive

—— New York Times

Haunting...her unhinged heroine is a true mirror of a damaged and deranged society

—— Guardian

Delirium has a determined and muscular narrative, with dry humour and a terrible sense of menace

—— Daily Telegraph

This barrio angel teaches us to see behind the appearance of things and how to embrace reality with all the senses

—— Isabel Allende

Laura Restrepo's Delirium has an aesthetic distinction worthy of her precursors Garcia Marquez and Saramago. Like them, her narrative sense of erotic derangement is elaborately nuanced. Ultimately she seems to me an authentic descendent of the greatest New World author and seer of eros, Walt Whitman

—— Harold Bloom

This beautiful and disturbing book haunted me during the days I read it and long after I put it down. Love, unknowability, loss, and even various forms of gain elide from one to another of its passionate, unnerving voices

—— Vikram Seth

A compelling and unnerving novel that offers profound insights into the deep scars that violence leaves on the individual and society

—— Observer

Wodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny

—— Adele Parks

I've recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it's like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music

—— Simon Callow

Wodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some

—— Joseph Connolly

I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language

—— Simon Brett

Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work

—— Jane Moore

To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment

—— John Julius Norwich

Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!

—— Lindsey Davis

The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon

—— Kathy Lette

Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny

—— Arabella Weir

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

—— Hugh Laurie

The greatest comic writer ever

—— Douglas Adams

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

—— Sebastian Faulks

Sublime comic genius

—— Ben Elton
Comments
Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.zzdbook.com All Rights Reserved