Review: Like Clockwork / Author: Damien Love / Publisher: The Incorporated Book Company / Release Date: Out Now
Well here’s a really marvellous thing. Like Clockwork is the brainchild of writer Damien Love and seems like a pleasing journey through the hazy memories of the writer’s childhood. That is, assuming that the Internet and Kindle had been invented at some point in the mid-Sixties; which, of course, they weren’t.
What Love has done is produce an old-school boys’ adventure serial that comes out weekly for the pocket-money friendly sum of 99p. Of course, when we say “boys” we do, nowadays, mean “boys and girls” but it’s so retro we were just trying to get into the spirit of the thing. It’s a text story with monochrome illustrations of the type you might find in ’50s British comics or those old annuals you might dig up in a charity shop (or your bookshelf if you’re a bit longer in the tooth and never throw anything out). The story is, slightly disappointingly, set in the present day and follows the pan-European adventures of Alex and his grandfather after the former is attacked by vicious clockwork-style tin robots. What’s not to like? It’s engaging enough for the younger reader and for the older among us the nostalgia factor is increased by the fact that the grandfather is clearly Jon Pertwee (and there’s nothing wrong with that). We also get a bonus story from “The Vault of Terror”, a cartoon strip and some spoof retro puzzles.
The review copy we have is a splendid newspaper-style printed version but, as it’s the 21st century and this is an imaginative indie-published idea, you’ll probably have to make do with a Kindle copy purchased from the website. Whether or not this takes off with today’s youth remains to be seen. Not sure they’ll get the delicious spirit of it and, let’s face it, they can’t even deal with Doctor Who unless it’s in self-contained single episodes (the occasional two-parter aside). Now we’re just sounding bitter and old. So instead we suggest you just go and nag and/or bribe any children you happen to know into buying this really rather ripping serial. Just tell them it’s got some gory bits in it; always worked when we were young. Here’s the website: http://www.likeclockworkserial.co.uk/
