The Clockwork Man by E.V. Odle

(MIT Press, 2022)

Reviewed by Andy Sawyer

A never-used Douglas Adams Doctor Who script (later adapted into a novel) featured a cricket match interrupted by aliens. E.V. Odle’s 1923 novel The Clockwork Man begins similarly, with Dr Allingham’s determination to improve his declining batting average blown to pieces by the sudden appearance of a strange gesticulating figure. Concentration gone, Allingham loses his wicket. Meanwhile, young Arthur, nervously awaiting his turn in a game for which he is temperamentally unsuited, tries to start up conversation with the new arrival, struck by his odd appearance—red wig, brown bowler hat, flapping ears—without even the “vaguest marks of homely origin”. The “Clockwork Man” (as he introduces himself) invites himself into the game, knocks the ball all over the place, fails to run when called on, eventually does so in such a chaotic fashion that he is eventually run out, and whacks the umpire when ordered to leave the field, astonishing Allingham, Arthur, Gregg (the team captain) and the rest of the players and spectators.

There is something very English about the disruption of this cosy scene, and, given that Odle’s novel has been out of print for some time, we have no idea if Adams had ever read it.

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Review from BSFA Review 18 - Download your copy here.