''Lord Kelvin's Machine'' is a
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
novel by American writer
James P. Blaylock
James Paul Blaylock (born September 20, 1950) is an American fantasy author. He is noted for a distinctive, humorous style, as well as being one of the pioneers of the steampunk genre of science fiction. Blaylock has cited Jules Verne, H. G. W ...
. It was released in
1992 by
Arkham House
Arkham House is an American publishing house specializing in weird fiction. It was founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin, in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to publish hardcover collections of H. P. Lovecraft's best works, which had ...
in an edition of 4,015 copies. The author's first book published by Arkham House, the novel is the third in Blaylock's
Steampunk series, following ''
The Digging Leviathan'' (1984) and ''
Homunculus
A homunculus ( , , ; "little person") is a representation of a small human being, originally depicted as small statues made out of clay. Popularized in sixteenth-century alchemy and nineteenth-century fiction, it has historically referred to the ...
'' (1986). A substantially different novelette version first appeared in the Mid-December 1985 issue of ''
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
''Asimov's Science Fiction'' is an American science fiction magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov. It is currently published by Penny Publications. From January 2017, the publicatio ...
''.
Plot summary
In
Victorian London
During the 19th century, London grew enormously to become a global city of immense importance. It was the largest city in the world from about 1825, the world's largest port, and the heart of international finance and trade. Railways connecting ...
, Alice, the wife of scientist-explorer Langdon St. Ives, is murdered by his nemesis, the hunchback Dr. Ignacio Narbondo. St. Ives and his
valet
A valet or varlet is a male servant who serves as personal attendant to his employer. In the Middle Ages and Ancien Régime, valet de chambre was a role for junior courtiers and specialists such as artists in a royal court, but the term "valet ...
, Hasbro, pursue Narbondo across
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...
, contesting Narbondo's plot to destroy the earth and, later, efforts to revivify Narbondo's apparently frozen corpse. In the process St. Ives gains access to a powerful device created by
Lord Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, (26 June 182417 December 1907) was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, he did important ...
, which allows St. Ives to travel through time.
See also
*
List of steampunk works
Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world wherein steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set ...
Sources
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External links
* {{isfdb title, 1614
1992 novels
1992 science fiction novels
Steampunk novels
Works originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction
Novels about time travel
Novels set in London
Novels set in Norway