Watching the Clock

Watching the Clock is a Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations novel – the first book in the series – written by Christopher L. Bennett. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in .
The novel centers around the Department of Temporal Investigations, including the agents Dulmur and Lucsly from the episode .
== Summary ==
;From the book jacket
:There's likely no more of a thankless job in the Federation than temporal investigation. While starship explorers get to live the Human adventure of traveling to other times and realities, it's up to the dedicated agents of the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations to deal with the consequences to the timestream that the rest of the Galaxy has to live with day by day. But when history as we know it could be wiped out at any moment by time warriors from the future, misused relics of ancient races, or accident-prone starships, only the most disciplined, obsessive, and unimaginative government employees have what it takes to face the existential uncertainty of it all on a daily basis… and still stay sane enough to complete their assignments.
:That's where Agents Lucsly and Dulmur come in–stalwart and unflappable, these men are the Federation's unsung anchors in a chaotic universe. Together with their colleagues in the DTI – and with the help and sometimes hindrance of Starfleet's finest – they do what they can to keep the timestream, or at least the paperwork, as neat and orderly as they are. But when a series of escalating temporal incursions threatens to open a new front of the history-spanning Temporal Cold War in the twenty-fourth century, Agents Lucsly and Dulmur will need all their investigative skill and unbending determination to stop those who wish to rewrite the past for their own advantage, and to keep the present and the future from devolving into the kind of chaos they really, really hate.
== Background information ==
* The novel was first announced under the working title Star Trek: DTI by Bennett on , with the final title announced in Star Trek Magazine issue 154.
* As was the case with the Star Trek: New Frontier comic "Double Time", the 29th century Starfleet officer Lieutenant Ducane's first name is stated to be Juel.
* This novel features characters who appeared in the pilots and/or finales of all four Star Trek spin-off series: Jean-Luc Picard, Deanna Troi, and Worf all appeared in and , Picard appeared in , Worf appeared in , Kathryn Janeway appeared in , Janeway and Korath both appeared in , the Humanoid Figure appeared in , and Troi appeared in .
* This novel reveals the true motivation of the mysterious Humanoid Figure who acted as a provocateur for the Temporal Cold War during the events of ; his attacks on the past were intended to eliminate the ancestors of various temporal scientists before they could attend a vital conference in 2382 that would result in the creation of a subspace detection network that would alert the present to attempts by future time-travelers to alter the timeline. It also reveals that the Temporal Cold War never affected the events of the other four series because all powers involved in the struggle have agreed to take no action in the past between the founding of the Federation and the destruction of the Borg Collective (as depicted in Star Trek: Destiny), as any timeline where the Federation did not defeat the Borg in this time frame resulted in the complete assimilation of the Federation by the twenty-seventh century.
* Cover art by Cliff Nielsen with design by Alan Dingman. Book designed by Esther Paradelo.
== Characters ==
* Dulmur
* Lucsly
* Deanna Troi
* Jean-Luc Picard
* Kathryn Janeway
* Worf
* Ducane
* Clare Raymond
* Korath
* Morgan Bateson
* Melora Pazlar
* 
* Humanoid Figure
* Paul Manheim
* Ajur
* Boratus
* T'Pan
* Aleek-Om
=== Cover gallery ===
File:Watching the Clock solicitation cover August 2010.jpg|Solicitation cover
== External link ==
* 
Category:Novels