The Clockwork Man

In this strange novel by E.V.Odle, (and not Virginia Woolfe's pseudonym, as it has been suggested), creatures called the Makers install clockwork into some men's heads — allowing them to move throughout time and space at will, but removing their freedom at the same time.

In the meantime, women and a few remaining men are left on Earth, trying to create a perfect society.

This is a very early story about cyborgs -1923- but that is somehow a prophecy of our future. Are we becoming too dependent on technology? What are we willing to give up in exchange? Our freedom?

A marvellous and somehow forgotten novel, that is as prophetic as 1984, We and Brave New World... A must read if you like dystopias.

The author, Edwin Vincent Odle (1890-1942) was the first editor of an English magazine, The Argosy from 1926 to about 1938, and brother to Dorothy Richardson's husband, Allan Odle.