Homunculus and Lord Kelvins Machine by James P. Blaylock
"Homunculus and Lord Kelvin's Machine" intertwines elements of science fiction and fantasy through its complex narrative involving mysterious characters and extraordinary inventions. The story begins with a dirigible over London, piloted by a figure named Birdlip, and follows Dr. Langston St. Ives, an unconventional professor seeking to build a spacecraft with the help of a toymaker, William Keeble. The plot thickens as St. Ives and his allies from the Trismegistus Club face off against Dr. Ignacio Narbondo and his dubious associates. Central to the story is the homunculus, a small humanlike creature, which becomes pivotal to the unfolding events.
In "Lord Kelvin's Machine," the characters reappear amid a looming threat from a comet. The Great Lord Kelvin constructs a machine intended to reverse Earth's magnetic polarity to avert disaster. Meanwhile, Narbondo hatches a plan based on the hollow Earth theory, leading to a showdown with St. Ives and his crew. As St. Ives uses a time machine linked to Lord Kelvin's creation, he embarks on a quest to alter the past and save his lover, Alice, resulting in unexpected consequences that blur the lines of memory and reality. This narrative weaves themes of scientific exploration and ethical dilemmas, leaving readers intrigued by the intersections of technology and humanity.
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Homunculus and Lord Kelvins Machine
First published:Homunculus (1986) and Lord Kelvins Machine (1992; parts first appeared in different form, Isaac Asimovs Science Fiction Magazine, 1985)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Science fiction—alternate history
Time of work: The 1870s
Locale: England, principally London
The Plot
Homunculus begins with a mysterious dirigible being sighted over London, piloted by an equally mysterious man named Birdlip. Dr. Langston St. Ives, a professor out of favor with the Royal Academy because of his unorthodox ideas, has constructed a spacecraft, for which he needs the services of a toymaker, William Keeble, who apparently has created a perpetual motion machine. St. Ives has elicited the help of Bill Kraken, a former assistant to Sebastian Owlesby, a deceased scientist who seems to have had some connection with the dirigible now belonging to Birdlip.
Gradually, two sides in a confrontation are sorted out. The protagonists are members of the Trismegistus Club, which meets in the tobacco shop of Captain Powers, a man with a wooden leg that can be used as a pipe and has a receptacle for liquor. This leg was built by Keeble, most of whose apparently magical inventions also serve as flasks. The other major member of the club is Jack Owlesby, son of the late scientist.
On the other side, Dr. Ignacio Narbondo apparently is in league with Kelso Drake, one of the worlds richest men, who is rumored to have hidden a spacecraft in one of his brothels. This was the original landing vessel of the homunculus, a humanlike creature a few inches high. Narbondo’s primary allies are Billy Deener, a thief and probably a murderer, and Willis Pule, who is a wizard or scientist (the two types are never clearly differentiated) and who knows a lot about the homunculus.
The homunculus himself is suspected to be on board the dirigible with Birdlip, trapped in a box made by Keeble. At least two other almost identical boxes exist, one containing an emerald, the other an oxygenator Keeble built for use in St. Ives’s ship.
Narbondo has been animating corpses by some mysterious means involving the use of carp glands and various chemicals. The Reverend Shiloh is a mad evangelist who has agreed to side with Narbondo in the hope of seeing his mother, Joanna Southcote, brought back to life. Narbondo tries to revive her because she was the first human to come in contact with the homunculus.
Homunculus ends as confusingly as it began. The dirigible lands, and Birdlip, the pilot, turns out to be a ghoul. The homunculus gets out of its box, enters its spaceship, which St. Ives has recovered, and departs into space. The dirigible explodes.
Lord Kelvin’s Machine involves most of the same characters as Homunculus, the major addition being Hargreaves, an assistant to Narbondo. Hasbro, St. Ives’s assistant, and Jack Owlesby play larger roles than in the first book. The story begins with a flashback to a coach chase in which St. Ives’s lover, Alice, is killed by Narbondo.
The story proper begins with the approach of a comet that could hit Earth and cause widespread destruction. The Great Lord Kelvin has built a machine that will reverse Earths magnetic polarity. One scientific theory holds that during the changeover there will be no magnetic field at all around Earth, so the comet will not be attracted, assuming that gravity is a form of electromagnetic force.
Meanwhile, Narbondo is working on the basis of the hollow earth theory. He is formulating a plan to move Earth into the comets path by plugging up volcanoes in Norway, so that the pressure will be released in Peru, thereby making Earth move like a rocket in the proper direction. His plans are foiled by Kraken, under the direction of St. Ives. In Norway, Narbondo falls to his apparent death.
Lord Kelvin’s machine is revealed to be under the North Sea. St. Ives retrieves it and discovers that it is actually a time machine. He decides that he will use the device to return to the incident involving Alice and Narbondo, then save the woman he loves. Before he accomplishes this, he experiments, beginning with a trip into the past, to London in 1835. There he finds Narbondo as a little boy and is surprised to see that the child is not a hunchback but apparently suffers from pneumonia. St. Ives decides that the boy also has meningitis as a complication of the disease and abandons his original idea of killing him. Instead, he travels forward to 1927, where he meets Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. He takes some of that drug back to save the boys life.
St. Ives manages to save Alice, but in the process, he finds his memory fading. Narbondo, no longer a hunchback, is now an evangelist. Alice is St. Ives’s wife, and the two have a baby boy. What becomes of the time machine is never made clear.