From the Publisher
"An excellent example of the promise of the Radium Age series, giving deserved attention to a hilarious and prescient work of science fiction that has almost been forgotten."
—Shelf Awareness
“Fluidity versus fixedness as markers of peace versus conflict is a strikingly resonant argument to find in a novel that’s just under a century old, and it more than justifies time spent in the company of The Clockwork Man.”
—The Los Angeles Review of Books
About the Radium Age Series:
“Joshua Glenn’s admirable Radium Age series [is] devoted to early- 20th-century science fiction and fantasy.”
— The Washington Post
“Long live the Radium Age.”
— The Los Angeles Times
“It’s an attractive crusade. […] Glenn’s project is well suited to providing an organizing principle for an SF reprint line, to the point where I’m a little surprised that I can’t think of other similarly high-profile examples of reprint-as-critical-advocacy. ”
—The Los Angeles Review of Books
“Neglected classics of early 20th-century sci-fi in spiffily designed paperback editions.”
—The Financial Times
“New editions of a host of under-discussed classics of the genre.”
—Tor.com
“Shows that ‘proto-sf’ was being published much more widely, alongside other kinds of fiction, in a world before it emerged as a genre and became ghettoised.”
—BSFA Review
“A huge effort to help define a new era of science fiction.”
—Transfer Orbit
“An excellent start at showcasing the strange wonders offered by the Radium Age.”
—Maximum Shelf
Library Journal
05/01/2022
Odle's 1923 proto-cyborg novel starts off like a P. G. Wodehouse story gone bonkers. A cricket match at the village of Great Wymering devolves into mayhem owing to the sudden appearance on the pitch of a weirdly herky-jerky fellow, stammering and clicking and wagging his ears. This odd individual turns out to be a castaway from mankind's multidimensional future, concealing under a red wig and bowler hat whirring dials whose malfunction has stranded him in our decidedly provincial three dimensions. The satiric misadventures that ensue often reflect two unsettling preoccupations of the era: Einsteinian relativity and women's rights. Some are horrified by the Clockwork Man's shocking metamorphic powers, while others excitedly anticipate the marriage of man and machine that we now term the Singularity. Readers ultimately discover a sobering aspect of life in the 59th century—and learn who winds up all those clocks—in a poignant finale that anticipates the technological anxieties at the heart of much speculative fiction to this day. VERDICT Odd but no mere curiosity, this whimsical yet haunting novella reads like a missing link between Victorian and Golden Age science fiction, as befits the aim of MIT Press's new "Radium Age" series to recover neglected classics of early 20th-century science fiction.
NOVEMBER 2013 - AudioFile
Being a stranger in a strange land is never a comforting experience. Narrator Ralph Lister's animated performance captures all the bewilderment associated with that circumstance in this curious tale about a half-man/half-machine from thousands of years in the future who suddenly appears in 1920s England. Lister’s voice moves from the stuffy accents of the British aristocracy to the high-pitched squeak of the Clockwork Man's machinery as it starts malfunctioning, along with associated beeps, buzzes, and, on one occasion, growling. Lister goes after it all with gusto and conveys the deadpan humor with skill. Despite the silliness, the story leaves listeners thinking about how much humanity must be sacrificed to create the ultimate being. E.E. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
