Not a Horror Cuckoo, but a Sci-fi Tale with a Moral Dilemma

Click for a sneak peek on The Midwich Cuckoos.

Having watched the two film versions, when I looked for the novel that had inspired the horror classic tale of the kids with the shining eyes that oblige the inhabitants of Midwich to kill themselves, I was surprised by the type of story I found. I was expecting an action-packed novel with a more elaborate insight on the origins of the "cuckoos", but by the time I had approached the end, I actually had more questions than answers. The story does not concentrate on the origin of the children and their clash with the inhabitants of the village. They play an important role, but more importantly than that is the moral dilemma the people from Midwich have in their interactions with anthropomorphic beings that are clearly not their offsprings, but that were brought in the villagers' homes.

The children do not even act like children, they are highly intellectual machines with the ability to control minds, especially when they feel threatened. Yet, they seem to overreact and have no sense of compassion, which earns them enemies that try to stop them at any costs. In the novel, a few prominent characters who play the role of the voice of reason, discuss the way they can solve the problem with the "cuckoos". They are aware that in a more primitive society, in this case, Innuits, the children and their surrogate mothers were exterminated when the kids were just newborn babies vulnerable to physical attacks. The Innuits justified the attack by judging the children as a product of physical contact with demons. In the communist Russia, where the state's welfare must prevail over any individual's wellness, the whole village, which is mentioned to be at least twice more populated than Midwich, is destroyed with heavy armaments to make sure that no "cuckoo" was able to survive and control more minds.

Zellaby, our most prevalent voice of reason, makes the decision to give an end to the moral dilemma of ending the life of the children, by taking advantage of the respect they seemed to have for his ability as an interesting lecturer. The story is more or less similar when we compare the film versions with the novel, but the novel lacks the spectacularity of a few images present in both film versions. Most times everything is told in the first person and the actions taking place just seem to be narrated as if they had happened a couple of weeks before. There is even a discussion on the right minorities have to live and prosper when they settle in already-established communities. The Midwich Cuckoos is a classic sci-fi story that I feel glad I read in order to go deeper on the spectacularity of seeing a bunch of kids manipulating the minds of simpleton villagers. I should write a sequel that takes into account the prevalent questions of minorities' rights and migration, which are paramount in our modern world.

STARDUST: A FALLEN STAR DISAPPOINTMENT

The used copy I got at La Gran Manzana for only $ 15,000 pesitos.

It could have been a lot better, but in the end, fell flat on Earth.

When Neil Gaiman is at his best his prose is exhilarating and engaging, but it was not the case with Stardust. There were so many wonderful things that were supposed to happen in this novel that were simply overlooked and ignored. I am sure that Gaiman had a fantastic story he had planned to tell us, but in the end, he produced this flat monotone which I consider a disappointment. I will not dare say it was a bad book, but it was far from being a good one. By the time I finished reading the last line of Stardust I was already forgetting the plot as well as the main characters. There is not much depth in them, and the ending has no climax whatsoever. If there is a piece of work by Gaiman that is highly overrated, it is Stardust.

I am aware there is a film version which actually helped cement the reputation of the novel, but in these lines, I am going to refer solely to the novel. If you have never read it, and you have got the intention to do so, be warned right now: spoilers alert. I love Gaiman as an author and teacher. He has got fantastic ideas to motivate you to start writing, but this novel felt particularly flat as though he had never wanted to pen it down. The hero is unlikeable and the love story never caught me. It seems to be Gaiman had planned to do lots of stuff, but in the end, he just gave us a few insights into what a great fantasy novel could have sounded.

In the edition I got (luckily an old pre-owned copy I bought at "La Gran Manzana" in Bogotá for only $ 15,000 pesos) there was a page count of 250 words that actually felt like being shorter, due to the fact there was actually a bit too much room between lines. Although the word count seems to be more than enough to tell a compelling story. Gaiman included so many elements that were rushed so awfully, that I felt the story could have improved with a few more pages. Everything seemed to be ethereal. Despite the journey feeling magnificent, and the main reason to read the novel, all the events and the characters we encounter in the story are not given enough depth and background to care for them.

I am usually a highly-focused reader who can concentrate easily on long passages of prose, but Stardust was the type of novel where everything jumps from point A to point B without much warning. I found myself going back in the text repeatedly to find out what had just happened. Lots of characters' motivations or importance are jotted down in a few lines, and except for Tristran and Yvaine, we cannot make ourselves a clear picture of who everyone is.

This novel was written as a fantasy story for teenagers and children. I have always thought this type of readers are extremely hard to please and want to be entertained throughout their journey with a book. I wondered if this novel was able to succeed in accomplishing that. I believe it was not able to do so. the copy I got in La Gran Manzana must have surely belonged to a schoolgirl who thought it was better to get a few pesos back from her original investment, instead of keeping a copy in her personal bookshelf. She could not feel much love for this novel, as I could not feel identified with the way Gaiman wasted a gorgeous set of characters and events to tell us a flat forgettable and frankly boring story. Unfortunately, this has been the worst book I have read this year. If I were ranking my reading with a star system, this would have barely been granted two stars for at least trying hard, but failing flatly.  

A Tour Around the USA with a Likeable Demigod

Click for a sneak peek of the novel.

Shadow loses his real name in the search for a second chance, in the vigil he makes for his deceased father and employer, and we never get to really learn his actual name, but that does not really matter, anyway. American Gods is everything a novel has to be in order to be believable and beloved. It might sound like not a great deed these times, but Gaiman dares found new mythology and start a war between the old Gods and the new ones, which impersonate all the raw sins of modern and early days. He manages to do this masterfully and during that process, he takes us through this frenetic roller-coaster hand in hand with a guy called “Shadow”, who ends up being the only heir of Odin in America. It is an ambitious engaging novel that despite its complexity, can be summarized in a few words: a journey; a search for our place in the world, for our true mission.

Shadow is a recently-released convict who is allowed to leave prison a bit earlier due to the tragic deaths of his wife and his best friend. On the way home, a mysterious old man with a glass eye proposes him a job that he ends up accepting. He ends up finding out that his wife died with his best friend’s cock in her mouth. While he tries to reunite with his new employer, he engages in a brief fight with the biggest dwarf in the world, an Irish drunk who accidentally gives him a magical silver dollar. Additionally, he is threatened by a psychotic fat boy in a limousine. Both of these characters warn him to be wary with his employer, Wednesday, an old charming man with a crazy addiction for bedding barely legal blondes. His dead wife pays him a visit that very same night, and he discovers that she has come back to make it up for him and protect him from the new gods who want to clear him out of the way. This is just the very first two hundred and fifty pages of the novel, and then the journey to convince other old gods of joining them on their struggle with the new gods continues almost nonstop.

American Gods is a very skillful suspense fantasy yarn with an ending that surprises everyone, but that makes perfect sense. There are plenty of passages with exhilarating fragments of highly imaginative mythology. In the process, Gaiman manages to take us on a tour around the United States, its people, their way of living and even the way they talk. Consumerism, capitalism and the media-saturated environment are captured in this masterpiece, as well. American Gods is a one-of-a-kind story, but not exactly the easiest to read; therefore, I would only recommend it for whom I consider mature readers. I guess you might wonder what a mature reader is, and I would dare define them as the kind of critical readers who can do the most of his reading and writing and use his background knowledge to make sense of the real and the fictional world and embrace a story as if it were their own.  All in all, American Gods is a must-read for all fans of storytelling and fantasy. A masterpiece from one of the best narrators of our times.