Lord Kelvin's Machine

Deftly written by James P. Blaylock (a winner of the World Fantasy Award and the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award), Lord Kelvin's Machine is a fantastic steampunk saga set in Victorian London. Our intrepid hero, Langdon St. Ives, is devastated by murder and surrounded by mayhem in the midst of an uproar over (and battles to possess) a wondrous machine with the power to travel through Time itself. An astutely told science fiction adventure laced through and through with humanity, reflection, high escapades, drama, and coming to grips with the terrible specter of death, Lord Kelvin's Machine is enthusiastically recommended reading for all dedicated science fiction enthusiasts.

Probably the best thing one can say about this book is that after this he got loads better. This novel shows Blaylock attempting to write a alternate historical fantasy (I think, though it's never clearly said) with a knotted twisting plot while at the same time having a little fun with it. Most of it comes off like he was reading his good friend Tim Power's novels and thought, "Hey I could do that!" but this kind of thing definitely isn't where his strengths are. The blurbs on the back and front tout it as a time travelling novel and it sort of is one of those but you have to get through two other parts with the same characters . . . the main character is a detective/scientist named St. Ives who is trying to stop a diabolical professor, especially after the man killed the love of his life. The title machine comes in early for a totally different reason (and it's never explained how they decide to use it to travel in time) and the science must be parody but it's played dead serious which sort of deflates the purpose. So they're entertaining but don't seem to move any kind of plot forward . . . it's also hard to get a handle on St Ives, all you ever hear is how brilliant he is but you never really see him dedude anything or work hard at it, he just knows everything and Blaylock seems to operate on the idea that if you repeat something often enough people will believe you. The third part, featuring mostly only St Ives nearly redeems the novel . . . after nearly beating it into you that he's at his wits end and is totally depressed and numb, things finally start happening and lots of interesting twists come in . . . unfortunately the ultimate resolution of the book makes you wonder why he just didn't do it earlier . . . frankly this feels like a short story padded out for whatever reason. Maybe Blaylock liked the characters. But honestly if you just took the prologue and the third part you would have a fine novella or the like. After this I think he abandoned the historical fantasy stuff and leaned more towards merging modern fantasy with the viewpoint of ordinary people and how it affects them . . . that he did brilliantly and those are the books you should seek out. (...)