This is a classic Science Fiction novel, A strange novel at that. 1923, the first to feature a cyborg, or a mechanically enhanced man. The clockwork man makes his way to a cricket match. His mechanisms are malfunctioning and he is hurdling back in time.

I found this book very slow to read. Yet fascinating enough to keep me reading and guessing what is to happen next. This book gets a 3.5 stars from me.

In this classic science fiction story, a clockwork man suddenly appears at a cricket match in a town in 1923 England; the cyborg causes some havoc, then runs off. Something has gone wrong with his mechanism, and he's been thrown back thousands of years in time. Eventually, two local men have conversations with the clockwork man: the local doctor and a young man courting, before the clockwork man disappears.

The doctor gets to see the clockwork mechanism, and discovers that many humans in the 8000-years later future are as the cyborg is, their brains augmented by a complicated clockwork mechanism and their bodies altered. The ones augmented thusly are those who refused to shed their bellicosity in the future, and actually spend their time in a type of virtual world, unlike women, other men, and some sort of advanced beings/aliens. The doctor is appalled by what the clockwork man represents: a refutation of tradition/patriarchy.

This book was written post-WW1 with all its cultural and technological upheavals, and Odle uses the two men to show how people were responding to these changes:
- the doctor with his traditional desires, and fear of women assuming some autonomy and control of their lives sees nothing but slavery for men in the future, while
-the young man is unthreatened, as he's already becoming increasingly comfortable with shedding some of his traditional notions of what a man is.

The story feels both revelatory for its time and pulpy (e.g., the constantly running legs of the cyborg when downed at the cricket game, the wig stealing, etc.) By today's standards, the pacing feels slow, but the book is short enough that it's not a big issue. The tone is both uncomfortable and droll; as an early piece of science fiction, it's fascinating.

Thank you to Netgally and to MIT Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

This book was originally published in 1923 and apparently it was the first book featuring a technologically enhanced human (cyborg). The nameless man suddenly appears at a cricket game in a small English village. The cyborg’s clockwork mechanism has malfunctioned and zapped him 8000 years into the past. The cyborg was pretty inventive. Even more imaginative was the backstory of why cyborgs were created. Unfortunately, that backstory doesn’t come until the end of the book. Before that, there is some dithering about the implications of scientific advancements and a sprinkling of gender politics. The description of the book made it sound more interesting than it turned out being.

I had a few technical issues with this new edition of the book being issued by MIT Press. First, apparently the publisher doesn’t really want people to be able to read its ARCs. Fortunately I borrowed the audiobook from the library, because the ebook ARC was made unreadable by the publisher’s name covering much of the text. Second, the introduction should really be moved to the end of the book. It gives away the entire book, and in my opinion over analyzes it. It would be better to skip it until you finish reading the book. 3.5 stars

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

The Clockwork Man is a book that was way ahead of its time. It’ll get your cogs turning as it masterfully spins the gears of speculation, humour, and invention.

Originally published in 1923, this novel is the first example of a cyborg in fiction. It’s one of the classics of proto-SF that The MIT Press have included in their Radium Age collection. And it’s a cracking little time-travel novel.

There’s a gentleness about the book that’s really pleasant to imagine — a quintessential Englishness that meets the arrival of a time traveller from 8,000 years in the future. The clockwork man appears in a stereotypical 1920s country village (camouflaged in a hat and wig) and engages in a game of cricket before being considered an oddity. That tells you everything you need to know about this story. It’s one of those rare gems that delivers a complicated time-bending multiverse-spinning narrative with charm and style. It’s the literary equivalent of a dandy gentleman doffing his hat and giving you a bow. There’s an etiquette and sense of wonder about the way it’s written which taps into the comfort of nostalgia and milks it for all its worth.

There’s so much character to this book. The plot is told across multiple perspectives, all surrounding the strange man with a clock in his head who can seemingly manipulate reality. In many ways, the ideas on display have never been more prescient. What is our relationship with technology? What is humanity and where is it going? Who are we, and who should we be?

There are so many layers to the story, and yet, it never feels dense. For example, a number of brilliant moments show characters reacting to the clockwork man in different ways that could either be seen as simple contradictions between two people, or a commentary on the influence of prejudice on society, the lack of acceptance to anything which challenges our preconceptions, and humanity’s resistance to change. This book goes as deep as you want it to. And in many ways, that makes it even more enjoyable. Like a spinning clock, it can either tell you the time, or it can show you the inner workings of what makes us tick, and have you pondering the question of why the seconds persist at all.

And it’s funny. There’s a comical touch which keeps things fresh, and it never takes itself too seriously. A polite absurdity touches every page. But what’s impressive about this is that the tone doesn’t jar. The light-heartedness never feels gimmicky or misplaced. It’s simply a delight.

An analysis of the book by Annalee Newitz in the introductory section provides a brilliant insight into the story. It reveals the flaws in the book. But it also celebrates its strengths. And I enjoyed the candid way that it introduces all that follows.

In short, this is a charming tale with hidden depths that’ll make you think, laugh, and feel. As a character, the clockwork man is a triumph of the future. As a book, The Clockwork Man is a triumph of the past, preserved in this beautiful edition that is definitely worth taking a trip to rediscover.

A strange early science fiction novel from 1923, the first to feature a cyborg, or mechanically enhanced man. The clockwork man of the title makes his first appearance at a cricket match. His mechanism is malfunctioning and he has hurtled back in time. Obviously this is a fascinating theme for a novel from this time. Where it didn’t work for me is that most of the book reads like a farce. The clockwork man has a comical appearance, his behaviour is bizarre and it reads like a piece of slapstick. It’s not till the end of the story that any idea of what the future that has created the clockwork man is like. I’d have enjoyed more detail about this society. Still a very interesting piece of early sci-fi.

I requested this book, because i really wanted to read it, read the classics of sci-fi is something that i really hold dear, and I usually don’t complain about the ARC, but this one was unreadable in my kindle T_T there’s words missing, or maybe whole sentences I don’t have a clue, for instance (I don’t know if you can verify this) in loc 538 I have

“the habit of following the latest result of scientifc inves

property of mit press

only to discover that others were making them at the same time.”

(I can give many other examples), I really tried to endure but every time I get the stamp of property of mit press some text is lost in the ARC, I tried to make sense, but I really couldn’t T_T, so I don’t think it is fair to leave a review in paying sites, because the copy you’ll be giving them is without doubt much better, and just my experience sucked its not fair to drag the book down, again, what I could make sense, I do like how it is written and the story is funny enough to bring new fans into reading the classics

The Clockwork Man is an early 20th century speculative fiction novel by E.V. Odle. Originally published in 1923, this reformat and re-release with extra commentary as part of the Radium Age Series was released 3rd May 2022 from the MIT Press. It's 202 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.

This early classic is less well known and often pushed aside in classroom use by showier examples of the time and genre, including R.U.R., Metropolis, and Automata. They make valid points about humanity (or the lack thereof), but this one by Odle throws hardwired testosterone fueled violence into the mix with an examination of gender and actions.

There are moments of true humor, including some grousing dialogue when the Clockwork Man shows up from the distant future in a village cricket match (Ok, he's not really human, I'll give you that, but he sure can play cricket, let's not be hasty throwing him out just yet). There are insights which, despite being almost 100 years old, still resonate this minute. This book first showed up on my literary radar in a classroom setting alongside Margaret Atwood and Asimov.

Readers expecting a story arc with identifiable beginning, middle, climax, denouement, and resolution are going to be disappointed. It reads more like a thought exercise and there are no solid protagonists or antagonists. Some of the language was (to me) rather overblown and convoluted. That being said, however, there's a fair bit of profundity here and it's a worthwhile read on the whole.

The book is accompanied by a foreword which takes up about 10% of the total page count. It contains an erudite and cogent introduction to the work in context to the time in which it was written. It also contains spoilers for the actual read, so I *strongly* recommend that readers who are new to the work refrain from reading the introduction before finishing the work.

Four stars. This is an important early work of science/speculative fiction. It's nice to see this series reprinting and updating important early works of SF/F.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I was granted complimentary eARC access to the 2022 edition of The Clockwork Man by E. V. Odle by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the access approval! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

I requested this book to review because I read an excerpt from it in robotics class back in high school and I thought it was high time that I read the whole book! The Clockwork Man is a brilliantly imaginative piece of early steampunk science fiction that was undoubtedly revolutionary in its time. I did read some of the other reviews before requesting it and I've seen the criticisms that this novella doesn't have a plot. It does. It's just not as high stakes and face-paced as we're used to now. Remember, this book is fast approaching its 100th birthday! The social speculation and futuristic ideas in this book would have been even more fascinating a century ago when these were new ideas.

I've seen this book called "the first transgender story" and I was questioning that for most of the book up until the point where the clockwork man's body is closely examined and the human characters consider what has been changed and removed in this man's anatomy compared to what they expected to see. The Clockwork man does discuss what it's like to live in a future where certain anatomical parts and activities and social experiences have become obsolete in a society of immortal mechanical people. I can see using this character as a vehicle to discuss the non-binary identity umbrella and agender in particular, but he doesn't feel like a representation of transgender identities to me in the typical use "gender and sex at birth are opposite" sense of the word transgender. The clockwork man in this book, and his contemporaries in his time, haven't transitioned in a sense of outwardly matching their true gender identity, they've been desexed.

What I was thinking while reading this book instead of the first transgender story thing was that this feels like the inspiration and predecessor for scifi icons Data from Star Trek, and I wonder if Roddenberry and his team had read this book.

As for the introduction and essays included in this edition, I think they're interesting from an academic standpoint as someone who has formally studied both literature and history, but I do feel like it spoils the experience of the book to read all of that first if you're reading The Clockwork Man for the first time. It explains and spoils everything, and it takes up a hefty 11% of the text before the story itself even begins (and then some after it ends.) I think I would prefer to see a brief intro, read the original story, then read 10+% more text in essays about the story.

The Clockwork Man is a overlooked science fiction novel, the first to use a cyborg sort of character, that was initially published in 1923, and is being brought back to life by MIT Press.

The title character is exactly what he sounds like - a human male with a clockwork brain. He somehow accidentally travels back in time about 8000 years, landing in the midst of a cricket game in England. While there are some humorous moments when he first appears, the book then becomes more serious and more philosophical about what the future of mankind may bring. Though somewhat dated in its style, the book was a fascinating look back at early twentieth century SF.

My thanks to MIT Press and to Netgalley for providing an ARC of the book.

The Clockwork Man by E.V. Odle is a very interesting piece of 1920's science fiction. While some would hail it as one of the earliest examples of an android, it definitely has shades of multiverse intermingled with the philosophy of what drives happiness, contentment, and purpose.

There are a multitude of reviews out there so my best advice is to pick up this short novel, give it a read, and then go back to the reviews to reflect on all of it. Going into this one blind allowed for much greater joy than if I had been given a synopsis ahead of time.