The Clockwise Man

BBC Books with Chris Eccleston on the cover. Not these are official fanfic kinda. Now badly written and fun to read. This one featured mechanical aliens, London in 1920, the Ninth Doctor, I still miss him even if I love Ten but I still miss big ears ;)

Rose and The Doctor end up misplacing the TARDIS, meeting up with royalty and making things right in the end. You can't really ask for more from this kind of book. Enjoyable and fun. The one I'm currently reading even has Captain Jack in. ( )

Shortly after the new Doctor Who series launched in 2005, BBC Books launched a series of original books featuring the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler as portrayed on television by Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper. These books have commonly come to be known as the New Series Adventures. These books were launched 3 at a time with the first three being The Clockwise Man, The Monsters Inside , and Winner Takes All .

In The Clockwise Man by Justin Richards, the Doctor and Rose land at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924, where they discover that people are being murdered. In the process of investigating, they meet, among other people, the deposed Czar of Russia. One character referenced simply as Anna in the novel is most likely supposed to be Anastasia.

I'm not going to go into a lengthy exposition on this book, but I certainly enjoyed it. It was nice to "see" Christopher Eccleston and Rose again. I really liked Eccleston as the Doctor and felt he didn't stay long enough. The novel also featured clockwork men which were not too dissimilar to those later featured in The Girl in the Fireplace. I'm not sure if there was any connection between them, but there doesn't appear to be. The novel also mentioned "Bad Wolf", which was part of the story arc for this season: a nice touch. ( )

My Doctor Who obsession continues in the printed word with this adventure taking the Ninth Doctor and Rose to Edwardian London. They are soon embroiled in a mystery that involves, yep, aliens. It’s a good story and one that probably works best as a novel that wouldn’t translate to the screen. ( )

The first of the tie-in novels issued for New Who, and as such featuring Nine (Chris Eccleston) and Rose, who have landed in 1920s London and promptly get tangled up with not one but two deposed heirs to a throne. One is a young boy with haemophilia; the other appears to be the prince of some small east European country. And there are assassins on the loose -- assassins who are accompanied by the sound of clockwork. Add in a woman who always goes masked and who recognises the sonic screwdriver as inappropriate technology, and the Doctor and Rose have quite a task on their hands in sorting out friend from foe.

It would be unfair to criticise this novel for giving me a slight sense of deja vu, because it was published during the first series of the Who revival, long before the tv episodes which revisit some of the same ground. (I can think of at least three at the time of writing this review, though naming them would be too spoilerish.) This is a competently written tie-in with some interesting themes and a nice sf mystery, and while I don't get a solid sense of a specific regeneration's personality, this is clearly the Doctor and his world. An enjoyable way to pass a couple of hours. ( )

I don't normally read books based on TV series' or films, but seeing as this (along with nine others) was on offer I decided to buy it. It's not going to win any prizes for writing style, but I found the story exciting and engaging and it kept me reading more than any book has since the last Harry Potter. Like a good Whodunnit it kept me guessing at who the bad guy might be and what really was going on, slowly giving me snippet by snippet of information so that I would realise something shortly before Rose or the Doctor did. The pace was excellent and that's what matters in a book like this. I was going to read a completely different book next but this has entertained me so much I've now picked up the next one! ( )