Lord Kelvin's Machine by James P. Blaylock

Ives can't bring himself to cold-bloodedly kill Narbondo even though the later killed St. Ives, of William Tenn's 'The Brooklyn Project'. The third book is Blaylock's witty takes on time travel rather reminiscent, in the changed memory of time traveler St. He also has a run in with the weird Pules. However, he's compotent and courageous enough to foil a renegade icthylogist and his dangerous sidekick from Wyoming in their scheme to use the stolen supermagnet to down metal-bottomed ships and extort money from the Crown. Jack's a pretty normal guy who chides himself for his fondness for good food and drink and naps and his wife and knows he's not particulary courageous. However, the novel's story and humor really picks up with Part II which is narrated by a minor character from Homunculus, Jack Owlesby. Ives being in Peru and how Narbondo's earthquake generating scheme worked. However, Blaylock never really explains why the opening chapter of Part I necessitates St. Blaylock provides an interesting story of how Narbondo is tracked down and how he ends up supposedly drowned in a frigid Nowegian lake.

Ives foiling a blackmail plot by Narbondo to pull a comet into the Earth via a powerful supermagnet. Ives out of it, comes off rather like Holmes' Scotland Yard rival, LeStrande.) The opening third of the book involves St. Ives and Parsons, the rather stuffy, socially connected member of the Royal Academy of Sciences who always keeps St. Narbondo is sort of a Moriarty figure to St. (The Holmesian flavor of this novel is even stronger than the one in Homunculus. Ives' wife and his quest to resurrect her via time travel. Ives' obsession with avenging himself on Narbondo for the death of St. The novel has an interesting structure and gets better as it goes along. Pule is now insane and forms a grotesque pair with his mother.

(The Lord Kelvin of the title is, in fact, the famous physicist Lord Kelvin who makes an appearance as a character.) Villains Ignacio Narbondo and Willis Pule are back from the first novel. Spoilers follow.I liked this sequel to Blaylock's Homunculus better than that novel. My reactions to reading this novel in 2002.

Lord Kelvin's Machine by James P. Blaylock