The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

This is to discuss November 2017 group read - The Clockwork Man by E.V. Odle.

Just for reference this has been serialised on line so if you don't mind reading on the pc you can find this here:

http://hilobrow.com/2013/03/20/the-cl...

That is helpful, for it's not easy to find, this work. Does 'serialized' mean simply the original book cut up in chapters? Or is it different from the original book?

Leo wrote: "That is helpful, for it's not easy to find, this work. Does 'serialized' mean simply the original book cut up in chapters? Or is it different from the original book?"

I said serialised as the site released the book over 20 weeks. I assume it is the original book split in chapters but maybe someone who has the book can let us know....

I've started reading this and it's quite a fun read. It's comical in places, as befits a book about a broken clockwork man. Some of the text shows it's age and this part where one of the characters is thinking about his future wife particularly made me smile
".... He was bound to applaud, but such activity of mind was by no means to his taste. He liked a woman to have thoughts; but a thinking woman was a nuisance."

I think i'm going to enjoy this one.

I found an audio book version on Hoopla, through my library. It may be a week or two before I can get to it.

This may be the earliest sf book I've read, as I am still new to the group. Read the first chapter and enjoying it so far. The writing moves along quickly. Jo, re your comment about a 'thinking woman being a nuisance': reminds me that I recently read a Niven book from the 70s and unfortunately there were similar sentiments.

Matt wrote: "This may be the earliest sf book I've read, as I am still new to the group. Read the first chapter and enjoying it so far. The writing moves along quickly. Jo, re your comment about a 'thinking wom..."

For me the early sci-fi is a bit hit and miss, I really like H. G Wells as most of his books read well today whereas other authors can seem horrendously dated and really have to considered in their historical context. The Clockwork Man so far seems quite readable in it's own right.

Similar sentiments about women in the 1970's is quite late, it shows how long it takes for attitudes to change. Here you can understand as it was written in 1923 and so it was just after certain women got to vote in the UK but still before all women over 21 in 1928.

Buck wrote: "I found an audio book version on Hoopla, through my library...."

I'm using that same version. I prefer reading rather than listening, because my mind wanders when I'm listening. But I'm trying to do this one this way. I'm at Chapter 4 and we've barely even seen the title character yet. Seems pretty fun so far.

Finished this one today. The writing moved along quickly and I felt Odle skillfully explored a variety of viewpoints and characters. Also neat that this is considered the first cyborg novel. I found myself siding with the Gregg character who wanted to understand how the clockwork man worked so that they could use that information to better society. At the very end though the author seemed to side with the more conservative doctor. Overall, pretty good stuff for such an early sf novel.

I was surprise by the comical tone of the story; as Matt points out Odle engaged you with each of the characters that encounters with the Clockwork man. Gregg being the one that has the least contact with him instead he's the most fascinated with the idea of what a progress a mechanical human would be. The Arthur character is what brings out the very human side of the Clockwork man which made the novel for me so compelling.

I didn't expect the feel of a cautionary tale, but enjoyed the novel anyways.

I started this yesterday and finished it today. It seemed to me to be in the style of H G Wells. In 1923 E.V. Odle had the idea for something that would be akin to a cyborg in today's SF. The clockwork man was controlled by the settings in the clock in his head. It was analog, mechanical. A mechanical man surely wasn't a new idea then, but this mechanical man moved in the dimension of time, and had difficulty with the concept of spatial dimensions. Imaginative.

I also finished it today. I like the character of the Clockwork Man. But not very much actually happened in the plot.

For a while the contemporary humans assumed this was what all men evolved into. But we later learn that, I think, men evolved into "the makers" and they made the clockwork men. The CMs are maybe servants? That seemed sad, although the CM didn't seem to see it that way.

I'm glad I read it, but I hope for more plot in the next book I read.

Ed wrote: "I also finished it today. I like the character of the Clockwork Man. But not very much actually happened in the plot.

For a while the contemporary humans assumed this was what all men evolved into..."

I kind of assumed that the makers evolved from humans, but that ain't necessarily so. The clockworks were a solution for violence and warfare. The clockwork man was apparently a human and if the makers were also, it was something like the morlocks and the eloi.

I really don't get how the time dimensional aspect came out of the mechanical clockworks

I had been completely unaware of The Clockwork Man before it became our monthly group read. I would put it among the better SF novels of that time period.

Buck wrote: "I had been completely unaware of The Clockwork Man before it became our monthly group read. I would put it among the better SF novels of that time period."

I have to agree with you. I finished it a few weeks back but i've been thinking about it quite a bit. I found the end quite sad and in some ways out of keeping with the rest of the book. I don't know if it is a theme from the older sci-fi that you should feel sorry for the "monster" as per Shelley, Wells etc.

It might be interesting to compare this to the 1868 book The Huge Hunter, Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies. That may be one of the first mechanical men in fiction, as well as the first pulp SF novel. Supposedly not very good, though.

If any of you liked this enough to want to read more by Edward Vincent Odle, his only other novel "Juggernaut" was not published in his lifetime but was re-discovered and published in 2016.

http://www.batteredbox.com/ComingSoon...

There is also a picture of him on that web page.

This is a very small press, and you can't likely find this book elsewhere, so you have to order from the website. The website says "You will not find copies of them just anywhere. (Indeed, it is unlikely that you will find them on the shelves or racks of book-store chains.)"

John Clute says it is an end-of-the-world story of robots run amok.

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...