The quartet of protagonists-Keisha, Siobhan, Maida, and Morris-all tell their stories in their own words. It’s much choppier than Cuckoos, primarily because of these constant changes in perspective. Where the influence of Wyndham is least felt-and what really differentiates the two books-is in the narrative voices of The Fallen Children and the novel's consequent emotional immediacy. He’s clearly trying to write an ultimately hopeful story focused on freedom and choice, and as a rewrite his success is mixed. In his Foreword he claims that “these young people face impossible circumstances outside of their control and fight them regardless, even as the world around them assumes the worst and does everything it can to drag them down” (p. Owen’s updated version is a YA novel that takes place on Midwich Estate, council housing for disadvantaged social groups. Fair warning: Wyndham is one of my favourite authors, though The Midwich Cuckoos is not, I think, one of his better works. These Children grow quickly, have telepathic and telekinetic skills, and the divide between human and alien quickly becomes first untenable then deadly, as both species act to protect themselves against the threat of the other. The Fallen Children is a modern day rewrite of John Wyndham’s 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos, in which the women of a community are forcibly impregnated with alien Children.
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