Karl is the clockmker's apprentice drinking at the inn, desperate with fear because he hasn't made the customary clockwork figure for the town clock to mark the end of his apprenticeship. Luckily, attention is drawn from him by the Fritz the writer, who tells a chilling story about a sinister clockmaker called Dr Kalmenius & how his diabolical inventions come to the aid of the royal family when the baby prince dies. But here our story takes a satisfying twist as Fritz is interrupted by his own creation: the evil clockwork-maker himself enters the inn & offers Karl a dangerous solution to his troubles. But Dr Kalmenius isn't the only fictional ...  Read the complete review

This is a traditionally based twisted tale that has a distinctly macabre quality to it, where fantasy is met by a haunting reality. It's fairly short as Philip Pullman's novels go (compared to the Northern Lights trilogy) but it's anything but easy to read. The plot thickens at every turn and you sometimes have to read back to check that you're in the fantasy part or the reality. A parallel is drawn at the start of the book between Fritz the story teller and Karl the clockmaker's apprentice. Neither character has finished their work that is to appear in the public domain, with literally no time to finish it. Karl starts his gruesome ...  Read the complete review