Throughout my analysis, I will follow Ketterer’s understanding of Wyndham’s fiction as “logical fantasies” or “reasoned fantasies” (2005, 178). Both topoi are, as I will show, connected through Otherness as one of the central elements in science fiction (Roberts 2006, 17 Seed 2011, 27). Following Miller and McFarlane, I will interpret Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoos ( 1980) against an ethical background, critically negotiating a utilitarian perspective, and against a scientific background, which emerged in the 1950s (i.e. This quote illustrates that for a long time in medical and health humanities, science fiction may have been too far-fetched for ethical analysis. Second, it was only five years ago that Miller and McFarlane argued that we should consider “the ways in which science fiction proposes concrete alternatives to hegemonic narratives of medical progress and fosters critical self-awareness of the contingent activity which gives ‘the future’ substance in the here-and-now” (2016, 213).

In contrast, contemporary authors like Margaret Atwood are interpreted much more often. In medical and health humanities, his name may be unknown for two reasons: first, Wyndham’s works were published two decades before the rise of academic and political discourses in applied ethics. 2 But, besides a small community of researchers, above all Ketterer (2001 2005) and most recently Määttää (2017 2020), John Wyndham is considered “the unread bestseller” (Rebellato 2010). His particularly famous novel is The Day of the Triffids (Wyndham 1984), which became a classic of British science fiction through its multiple adaptations. His novel, The Chrysalids (Wyndham 2008), for instance, was turned into a BBC radio broadcast twice in 19. This comes as a surprise, because some of his post-war works are well known.

Research on the British writer John Wyndham 1 (1903–1969) is rare.

Author of the midwich cuckoos