Writer: Oli Smith
Format: Novel
Released: July 2010
Series: NSA 40
Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory
Synopsis
"My watch is running backwards."
Colorado, 1981. The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in Appletown - an idyllic village in the remote American desert where the townsfolk go peacefully about their suburban routines. But when two more strangers arrive, things begin to change...
The first is a mad scientist - whose warnings are cut short by an untimely and brutal death. The second is the Doctor...
As death falls from the sky, the Doctor is trapped. The TARDIS is damaged, and the Doctor finds he is living backwards through time. With Amy and Rory being hunted through the suburban streets of the Doctor's own future and getting farther away with every passing second, he must unravel the secrets of Appletown before time runs out...
Verdict
Nuclear Time was a very good novel and it was actually the first time I've read a book on what was my usual train journey from one parent to the other since reading Big Bang Generation in the reverse direction of what I arrived today. It had been a while since I had done a story featuring this trio, a long time in fact, and with my only other experience of this threesome being The Chains of Olympus and Hunters of the Burning Stone graphic novels, only totalling five stories that they appeared in, this was a really nice story and I found myself really enjoying Amy and Rory being together for the entirety of the story. They really are a great couple and their relationship was captured in print excellently I must say. It was a joy to read their scenes together with both characterised fantastically which really pleased me as this was Rory's debut in prose so it may not have been up to scratch. However, no issues there. Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor was also characterised excellently which was great and many of the traits that make him my favourite Doctor were present. The clapping of his hands getting included was just one line but it makes it for me in terms of characterising the specific Doctor for the story. Each Doctor is so different so even though we can't see what incarnation the story features, it has to be sold to us. It's no use just writing on the back which incarnation features. There have to be elements of the character in that specific incarnation and that was absolutely the case here. The story was quite an audacious one from Oli Smith, a writer whose work I believe I was doing for the first time. Talk about timey-wimey! I thought Deep Time had a lot of that but this blew out of the park! I must admit that at times I found myself confused but that was mostly due to a delay in giving the explanation. Once we were explained how things happened, with some nice analogies to string and throwing rubbish out of a car, things seemed to click into place. But it wasn't 100% worked out in my head. I wasn't too keen on the jumping around of time for each chapter. If it had happened for 4-5 chapters in a row I would understand but when there are nearly twenty chapters not quite in chronological order, it can get a bit muddled. It did have some positives though I must admit! We saw the causes of effects but we were also placed in the Doctor's shoes on times by seeing the effect prior to having the cause revealed to us. The idea of the Doctor living backwards time was a difficult one to get my head around but fair play to the author, he made it work pretty well. I wasn't overly struck by the backwards words appearing in print as often as they did but it didn't really present too much of an issue. The Doctor meeting the version of himself living backwards through time was great and I liked the intrigue the Doctor showed. Thanks to the psychic paper, he knew what he had to do. The concept of Appletown was interesting and it just wouldn't be in any other place than the USA would it? A test town to obliterate an entire mission. Was robot weapons disguised as humans and actually having a conscience a bit too advanced for the 1980s? Possibly, yes. But the linkage with the Cold War was superb I thought. There's the History student in me showing as I really liked how that played a big role in the story. The government had planned to nuke the town full of near indestructible robots who thought they were on a mission but didn't want to create a mushroom cloud and alert the Russians to their testing. The Doctor dealing with that on his checklist in the climax was great. I thought Albert was a very good character and his story was played out very well over the course of the novel, even if it wasn't in the correct order. His relationship with Isley was interesting to say the least and I liked his loyalty to his dear robot despite Geoff and everybody else being wholeheartedly confused by his commitment to her. Could you really love a robot? It appeared so, but what was even stranger was the fact that it seemed she loved him back! It was a nice relationship though. Amy and Rory had that greatly too and I also liked the moment the Doctor and Rory exited the Doctor and the Time Lord worked out their location and time zone simply by smelling and tasting. He does like to show off. Albert and Geoff had a mixed relationship throughout but I loved how they got to finish on good terms with Albert getting his life back. The climax was good and the TARDIS playing a huge part in saving the day was superb. Overall, a very good story with some brilliant characters and a whole lot of tension and timey-wimey.
Rating: 8/10
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