The Midwich Cuckoos

Over the Easter break (well specifically yesterday after the long weekend project of painting our lounge room and hallway was completed sort of - we ran out of paint) I caught up on some reading and finally finished Uglies and then The Midwich Cuckoos (didn't read any of Jane Eyre though, don't know when I'll be finishing that sucker).

Basic story: an English town experiences a 'black out' where everyone in the town is asleep for a day with no warning/obvious reason whatsoever. When they awaken they realise all the possible women in the town have been impregnated. There are mixed reactions obviously and once the children are born it becomes quite clear they are not from this world, and the women were used as host mothers.

It is discovered the children can all communicate telepathically and are collectively just one boy and one girl. When the children reach the age of 8 (but look and speak much older) incidents begin to happen sparked by when one of the children is nearly accidentally killed. It becomes clear that something need to be done about the children as they can 'will' people to do what they want.

I love story lines like this in theory as I love anything that little bit left of centre, conspiracy theories etc but this being a novel published in 1957, got a little bit wordy and a bit too 'English' for my liking.

My overall thoughts:

It was very British, sort of 1950's esque and they were still concerned about the iron curtain, which I found kind of twee (and allowed me to reflect on some long forgotten history lessons).

There were lots of long winded passages of dialogue which I have previously encountered in Stephen King novels so maybe this is a trait of science fiction? I haven't read enough of the genre to know, and while it is informative and interesting it still comes off sounding a bit fake. Like you know, no one talks for 5 minutes holding a captive audience repeatedly. Or if they did we would think them a pompous bore.

I haven't seen the original film adaptation, just the one Christopher Reeve was in before he became paralysed, which is not very faithful to the novel. I have also seen the Simpsons episode (Wild Barts Can't be Broken) where they view the fictional The Bloodening, which is a parody of the film and is quite amusing but really has not a lot to do with the novel.

Overall a book I read out of curiosity and while it did still intrigue me, I may have picked the book based on the cover again (deliciously retro). How shallow of me.