All the women are pregnant, they are delivered of healthy babies, and thegeneration are quite uniform in manners, and appearance. It is obviously a mass event, by extra-terrestrials. how do the parents, and society deal with this phenomemon. Read for a good time, in a restrained, British kind of way. I read an earlier edition, of course. ( )

4.5/5 ( )

Story: 7 / 10
Characters: 6
Setting: 7
Prose: 7

The original "missing night" book, a very interesting concept. However there didn't seem to be a main character. Why bother introducing a narrator at all if they aren't going to play a big part. It caused a few minor troubles for the story. Nevertheless, certainly worth a read. ( )

The premise is terrifically unsettling. But there's no other way of saying it: this book is far too English to be effective. Everyone keeps their cool throughout the whole ordeal and very rarely do they act ungentlemanly or lose their composure over the alien children. It's as though the plot of the book were just an inconvenience on the way to tea time.
It's funny how even within the book they mention that had this happened in America there would have been mass hysteria. As a proud American I have to say that mass hysteria would have been more interesting. And could we please get more of what the mothers feel about all this? God forbid we should get the perspective of the Children.
Instead it's chapter after chapter of a pompous protagonist hemming and hawing over how they really ought to blow up the Children with dynamite sometime, and could you please pass the cucumber sandwiches? ( )

Like a really good Twilight Zone episode but with a rather abrupt and somewhat unsatisfying ending. Like a time capsule of stiff upper lip britishness no matter how queer the situation. Elevated by Fry's narration. ( )