Written
by Oli Smith
For
BBC Books
Published
2010
‘My Watch is running backwards’
Colorado, 1981. The
Doctor, Rory and Amy, land just outside a 1950s style village out in the
desert, called Appletown, where the neighbours have a touch of the Stepford
Wives about them and just as the Doctor and his companions begin to figure it
all out, a big nuclear bomb is heading their way.
You’ve heard me mention
before, how certain books I’ve read have been absolutely brilliant, and I doubt
a book can top the one I’m raving about, but Oli Smith’s Nuclear Time just did.
There’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in this story, which keeps up the momentum.
It begins with a scientist, (doesn’t it always) who creates a robot and promptly
falls in love with her, who then sees his work go up in flames, is offered a
new position within the military, creates more robots, but still favours his
first creation over the others. So basically, it’s about a lot of robots who
when reprogrammed cause a lot of mayhem for the military – but then, that’s
what they were programmed for, but of course, now that they’ve caused the
mayhem, costly mayhem, it’s what to do with them now they’re no longer of any
use.
Nuclear Time for me, has
to be one of the best Doctor Who stories for the Eleventh, because, for once,
it doesn’t really require the help of the companions. Sure, they’re in their
own little predicament, stuck in Appletown with a bunch of crazed killer
robots, but it’s the Doctor who comes to the fore and causes a lot of
disruption to time itself, when he
captures within the Tardis, a nuclear bomb destined for Appletown.
Now I’m not going to give
away too much from this story, and believe me, the bomb is only a small portion
of the novel – there is way more story than that to keep you focused.
The story flicks from one
year to another and back again, building on the relationship between the
scientist and the soldier in charge of the new agenda.
The Doctor has his work
cut out in this story because when he alters time, by trapping the bomb in a
stasis field, life for him revolves around walking backwards everywhere, and
talking backwards, because, let’s face it, his watch is going backwards too.
It’s an ingenious idea and
works so fluidly that, this is my new No.1 favourite Who novel.
Thank you Oli Smith for
the bicycle ride of my life, albeit backwards.
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