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| Doctor Who: The Clockwise Man | 
| Author: Justin Richards
Publisher: BBC Books
Category: Book
List Price: $11.99
Buy New: $8.87
You Save: $3.12 (26%)
New (10) from $8.87
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 121565
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 4.6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0563486287
Dewey Decimal Number: 741
EAN: 9780563486282
ASIN: 0563486287
Publication Date: August 24, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New. Delivery is usually 5 - 8 working days from order, International is by Royal Mail Airmail
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 9 | | NEXT » |
 The Clockwise Man - Fun to read! February 28, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I loved this book! It was fun to read and took up some time. I read the book on the train to work, in bed before going to sleep and really when ever I could find time to read. It drew me in and I loved it! Great plot and interesting villans and friends. Also a lot of twists and turns!!
 An Earthly Child March 14, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
-Justin Richards could write a book with his eyes closed.
-Justin Richards could write a book without using a typewriter, word processor, or dictaphone.
-Justin Richards could write a book even had he lived in the caves at Lascaux and could only use pictograms.
That's how easy Justin Richards makes it seem. "The Clockwise Man" is an intricate puzzle-box of a novel, and yet still gives off the sense that the author wrote it in a couple of weeks in his spare time while doing other, more elaborate things.
This was the first novel in the 9th Doctor series. Representing a change for "Doctor Who" original fiction after 15 years of edgy cheaply-made paperbacks aimed at the narrowest niche of fandom, the new series is made of shorter novels that don't quite capture the intensity of the first season of "Doctor Who", Russell T. Davies style. Well, at least the cover illustrations aren't embarrassingly bad.
Justin Richards, who's been writing interesting "Who" books for a decade, fires the opening gun in the 9th Doctor range -- set, as "Doctor Who" always did best, in a gaslit early 20th century, in parlors and dark alleys and museums. The novel opens with a knowing tug at the first "Doctor Who" TV episode, as the TARDIS lands in a London junkyard. One of the story's mysteries revolves around a young boy who is not quite who he appears to be.
The rest of the plot, in essence, is similar to a forgotten Richards' epic called "Dreams of Empire". A deposed alien dictator is kept prisoner on Earth. The problem is, he is hidden so well (to the characters, if not to the readers) that neither the Doctor, or a futuristic female assassin and her two mechanical helpers, can figure out who he is until it's almost too late. Along the way, Richards lays out a series of puzzles that the characters must solve in order to progress to the next chapter. There's a lot of double dealing, hidden identities, decoy villains, word games, and chess games.
For all the intrigue, "Clockwise Man" never takes any risks or thinks outside the box. When the climax begins in a tower that rises 300 feet above central London, you instantly know how the villain will be dispatched. And although Richards cheats badly by writing a moving death scene for a character who's later revealed to have lived, there are very few surprises in terms of who makes it and who doesn't. Secondary characters check out when you expect them to, in the way that you expected.
"Clockwise Man" is an extremely competent novel, but in the end it's a bit bloodless. As a print debut for the 9th Doctor, the story lacks the gleeful schizophrenia of "Rose", the TV debut. Not a bad read, but in the end Richards' storytelling is just a shade too narrow and too shallow for the small screen.
Hey, It's Doctor Who...not Shakespeare! October 13, 2005
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Okay all, here's my take on this book. First off, for a Doctor Who novel, it was average. It was true to the character of the 9th Doctor (for those of you in the States, trust me on this), and there weren't any painfully embarressing scenes where the Doctor goes completely out of his mind. Secondly, it had a decent story, a tad predictable, but it managed not to have gaping plot holes.
This is a book to read on the train, airport, or during a rainy afternoon. While it's not the best that English literature has to offer, it will put you in the middle of a Doctor Who episode for a few hours.
And really, what else do you read these books for anyway??
 Slow and tedious September 16, 2005
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
Of the first three 9th Doc novels I hear the most raves about this one but find I like it the least. The plot is slow. The mystery is rather tedius. And the climax is far too technical in writing style to be thrilling, as it should be.
Add in the fact the 9th Doctor acts more like the 7th while Rose is clearly not herself and this book is a letdown.
The Good and Bad of the New Series September 15, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is, as even the most blind of persons would know, the first novel based upon the new series of Doctor Who. The novel stars the 9th Doctor and his companion, Rose, no huge surprise since their pictures are on the front cover of a really nicely done hardback book (which, as noted by a few others, is so much better than the weaker paperbacks the BBC has given us for the 8th and Past Doctors). I wont go into the story that is found in this book as most likely, if you are already looking at this book, you have either read it and wish to know what other fans of the Doctor has to say about this book, or you'll get it anyway because you are said fan of the Doctor Who series and you like to collect all the knickknacks of Doctor Who. For me, the book was a pleasant read, over all. The characters were the usual set of Doctor Who characters, from the main characters themselves (Doc and Rose) to the supporting cast. The book is not a complicated storyline, as would be found in the 8th Doctor novels and even more so in the Virgin novels so long ago (at least now it seems so long ago). I really liked the story myself, and I think it is worth reading. But yes, there is a big "however" that I am in need of confessing...
First off, the BBC published the 9th Doctor's novels here in the States before they brought the new series over here. Thus we read the books before we even got to see the first adventure, Rose, let alone the whole series which was recently played on the Science Fiction Network. At least with the 8th Doctor movie, which I will say I'm a big fan of along with the other 8th Doc's adventures, we got to see the movie first and then stepped into the many adventures awaiting the 8th Doctor. Not so here, for me I feel that it is important to let the fans see the new Doctor (in this case the 9th) and then they understand the motivations and the quirks of the main characters. Thus you really didn't know the 9th Doctor and you just had to pick up pieces here and there through the six novels that star the 9th Doctor. It would have been nice to really know how Chris Eccleston showed himself as the Doctor before reading how the 9th Doctor was like in the six books that star the 9th Doctor. Which leads to the second problem...
Apparently, secondly, there will only be said 6 novels of the 9th Doctor at least for a long time being. This is a big problem for me because we the fans do not know much about the history behind the 9th Doctor except for the few snippets we gained through watching the first season (which is a good season and a worthy addition to any Doc Who DVD collection). It would be so nice for the BBC to actually give us novels of how the regeneration between the 8th Doctor and the lead in into the 9th Doctor's adventures... such as the infamous Time Wars...what was this war about? Besides between the Time Lords and the Daleks. How did it start and what really happened at the conclusion? What were some of the adventures that existed for the Doctor between the end of the Time Wars and the first show of the series, Rose? I really hope the BBC lets us know one of these days. For now, there will sadly be only be six 9th Doctor books. This for me is a big let down. I want more novels with the 9th Doctor.
I wont take stars off for these two points of problems simply because these points are not the book's fault. In the end I say that the Clockwise Man is a wonderful addition to the Doctor Who library. There isn't much new in the book that you haven't seen in so many other stories, but still I liked it myself and I think you will too. Also, the story isn't as in-depth as the stories found in the 8th and Past Doctor Who novels, but sometimes that is a good thing. I would hope you'd pick this book up because I think you, as a fan, would like it very much...along with the other new series books (from Clockwise to I Am a Dalek).
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