After the night of September 26, every woman of childbearing age is pregnant, all to give birth at the same time, to children who are all alike—their eyes mesmerizing, void of emotion. These children are innately possessed with unimaginable mental powers and a formidable intelligence. It is these children who develop into an unstoppable force, capable of anything and far out-reaching other humans in cunning. Whatever dwells in Midwich is sowing the seeds for a master race of ruthless and inhumane creatures who are bent on nothing less than absolute and total domination. We have both been given the same wish to survive, We are all, you see, toys of the life-force. It made you numerically stronger, but mentally undeveloped. It made us mentally strong but physically weak: now it has set us at one another, to see what will happen. A cruel sport perhaps, from both our points of view, but a very very old one. Cruelty is as old as life itself. There is some improvement: humour and compassion are the most important of human inventions; but they are not very firmly established yet, though promising well. But the life-force is a lot stronger than they are; and it won't be denied its blood-sports."

There are. The handful of women who go for terminations have their minds controlled and walk away. Everyone resigns themselves to not being able to leave Midwich. When the babies are born they grow faster than normal and soon start to exhibit what no one near them seems to feel are terrifying tele-cum-psychopathic behaviours. No ha estado mal, si es cierto que hay mas parte de teoría filosófica sobre como comportarse frente a una nueva especie superior que podría dar al traste con la especie humana y demás ideas, de lo que pensaba.Life gets less ordinary still when the inhabitants wake up 12 hours later and find that every woman of childbearing age is pregnant. There is a lot of placing of hands on bellies and gazing in wonderment up at the sky as expressions of incredulous delight creep slowly across faces, instead of a more plausible mass panic. This is when you know you are in for eight hours of traditional fare rather than any dizzying innovation, and so it proves. The description of the villagers' slow acceptance of the position is carefully controlled. Again, we feel a sense of the past in the communal solidarity and responsibility; there is a strong ethical code binding them together, whereas just a few miles away, as the character Ferelyn (the daughter of Zellaby, an important pivotal character in the novel) says, "they don't want to believe it…they choose to believe that that is a tale to cover up something more normal but disgraceful." There is both a sociological slant, and a psychological one, as Doctor Willers goes on to say that it is a "self-protective reflex which defends the ordinary man and woman from disquieting beliefs."

This book is one of the classics of Science Fiction. It is a well written book that is at times a slow moving story told in tremendous detail in more of a British style of writing than in the American style of get to the point now. The book was written at a high intellectual level in tremendous detail that makes the story well-written but at times almost lethargic and boring. I still liked the story but many people will not care for the style in which it was written. Cor! That there Miss Ogle ain’t ‘alf goin’ to cop ‘erself a basinful of ‘Er Majesty’s displeasure over this little lot! However, in in the collection Consider Her Ways and Others (see my review HERE), a couple of the stories have a strong female/feminist slant. 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 obliged 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 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. If you can ignore this hogwash, or at least smile and be amused, you will get through this book fine. I found it amusing.The Children themselves form two basic entities - male and female - split into 61 "components". By the end they have lived for nine years, look sixteen, and have immeasurable intelligence. The characters in the novel assume a working formula of a 16 year old human's multiplied by the power of 30, but both they and we know that any human comparison is useless. Here Boy speaks for all the Children, trying to explain their position as they request to be moved elsewhere, and thereby putting off the inevitable confrontation between species which would lead to humanity's extinction. The Children can also control the minds of the people around them, meaning they soon become too much to handle for the parents of the village. They’re handed over to be cared for by Professor Gordon Zellaby in an institution run by the Ministry of Defence. Under the guise of learning and development, The Children are observed under his watch but this is when things start to turn spooky. So I m continuing my adventures with reading all of the books by John Wyndham that I can get my hands on, and after this third one I plan to get them all because once again I ended up giving this a 4.5*s out of 5*s. I really think I've finally found the exact sort of older SF I enjoy, cosy, interesting and also fun. Resulta una obra bastate original, desprendiéndose de cierto parámetro de historias de la época sobre "invasiones alienígenas". Da normalerweise die Originalvorlagen viel mehr Tiefe aufweisen als die Verfilmungen, war ich gespannt, wie es mir mit dieser Erzählung aus dem Jahr 1957 ergehen würde.

The writing is good - Wyndham is surprisingly funny and does a fair job of characterization - Gordon Zellaby is a particularly strongly written character, although he isn't our protagonist.

This? This just pisses me off. It's made me want to make my Jules face -- yeah, I got one ... what of it? A remake of the 1960 movie was made in 1995 by John Carpenter and set in Midwich, California; it featured Christopher Reeve in his last film role before he was paralysed, and included Kirstie Alley as a government official, broadly comparable to Gordon Zellaby and Colonel Westcott respectively. Inventing the character of Professor Gordon Zellaby allows this novel to explore scientific hypotheses such as xenogenesis, or the supposed production of children who are markedly different from either of their parents. The narrator Richard Gayford has many indepth discussions with Zellaby, who is prone to philosophical digressions. He tends to soliloquise as he ruminates on various biological mechanisms. "The laws evolved by one particular species, for the convenience of that species, are, by their nature, concerned only with the capacities of that species - against a species with different capacities they simply become inapplicable." Si uno no está cegado por la seguridad de su propia indispensabilidad, debe admitir que, al igual que los reyes de la creación que nos han precedido, estamos llamados a ser reemplazados un día. Esto podrá producirse de dos maneras: sea por nosotros mismos, por nuestra autodestrucción, sea por la invasión de una especie que no podamos dominar por falta de medios técnicos suficientes. Bien, henos aquí ahora frente a una voluntad y una inteligencia superiores. ¿Con qué podemos oponernos a ella?"

Although this novel is class-ridden, and the women's roles are very much of their time, it is told with a wry humour which I had forgotten in the aftermath of all the adaptations. The first of these goes by the name of "Village of the Damned", from 1960, and was followed shortly by a sequel "Children of the Damned". John Carpenter then remade "Village of the Damned" .in 1995. All these are good chilling films, but they are bound to lose the feel of the original text.Critics of the novel have argued its implausibility; however was this all kept secret? Well, this was 1957, and we are told the village (a sleepy sort of place to start with!) was in an isolated position. It is a stretch to believe, but communications were extremely basic for ordinary folk then. And why, modern readers may ask, was abortion not suggested? Again, different times, different ethics. Abortion was a very rare event. Mostly unwanted pregnancies would end in adoption, and some of these in the story were very much wanted in any case. All the little cameos here are a treat to read. Such a variety of reactions from people very much of their time. The women I found to be especially interesting. Often novels written then tend to objectify women, but, class-ridden though they were, these women are believable as real characters. For the daughter of an educated well-to-do family it is perceived as a minor difficulty, but easily got round. Others less privileged went to dangerous lengths to avoid ever having to disclose the information. Als Fazit muss ich leider konstatieren, dass dies einer der wenigen Romane ist, die ich verfilmt besser finde als in Buchform.