The novel “Nuclear Time” by Oli Smith was published for the first time in 2010.
The Tardis materializes on the outskirts of what appears to be a very normal small town. The Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory go to visit it, and quickly realize that the inhabitants are robots except Albert, their creator. The robots use lethal force when discovered, and the travelers must try to hide while Albert gets killed.
A plane approaches the town and the Doctor realizes that it’s about to drop an atomic bomb on the town to destroy the robots. He tries to escape with his companions but loses sight of them. On the other hand, he’s faced with himself and the suggestion of a strategy to prevent everyone from being killed, but the result is a time alteration.
“Nuclear Time” is part of a series of novels connected to the new “Doctor Who” series. They’re targeted to a wide audience by being linear enough to be appreciated even by very young readers but sophisticated enough to interest more mature readers. With the adventures of the Eleventh Doctor, there was a small change in the size of the novels about “Doctor Who” new series’ adventures, which have become slightly larger.
“Nuclear Time” is set on Earth in 1981, apart from some flashbacks showing events from previous years, without aliens but with robots developed within a military project and therefore potentially deadly. The story is well rooted in the Cold War period, with the danger of an atomic war and the memory of the Vietnam War, which was still painfully fresh in the USA at that time. All of this comes beautifully mixed into a storyline that has a strong wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey element.
In some “Doctor Who” novels the Doctor and his companions are the only really important characters, in this case Oli Smith created a couple of strong characters who are the protagonists as much as the travelers. Dr. Albert Gilroy created robots equipped with artificial intelligence, and his project was funded by the US military. Colonel Geoffrey Redvers discovered that project and made Albert an offer he couldn’t refuse. These two characters go beyond certain stereotypes about scientists and soldiers offering complex traits with personal stories that created motivations for their actions. For this reason, it’s weird that the book’s blurb describes Albert as a mad scientist.
To save Amy and Rory, the Doctor is forced to use the Tardis in a way that’s decidedly unorthodox even by his standards. The result is that he finds himself living time in reverse, with all the problems that this entails. His attempts to interact with other people, who don’t understand what he’s saying because they hear it backwards and it is incomprehensible to them, may be funny, but he’s trying to save lives, so there’s a dramatic basis to that part of the plot.
The combination of the various elements, including the flashbacks, makes the plot of “Nuclear Time” far more sophisticated than the average of the novels in this series. Each chapter lists the date, time and place at the beginning to help readers maintain the thread of the story. However, some attention is needed because the main part of the story takes place within a few hours, so even the time has its importance.
Overall, “Nuclear Time” is a well-constructed novel with twists inserted in a way that takes advantage of the time alteration the Doctor is in. Due to the plot complexity, it can be difficult for younger readers and for those who have difficulty following plots based on temporal anomalies. I recommend reading it to everyone else.
