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Homunculus (The Narbondo Series #2)

3.64 of 5 stars 3.64 · rating details · 286 ratings · 22 reviews

In 1870s London, a city of contradictions and improbabilities, a dead man pilots an airship and living men are willing to risk all to steal a carp. Here, a night of bangers and ale at the local pub can result in an eternity at the Blood Pudding with the rest of the reanimated dead.

Paperback, 248 pages

Published July 1st 2000 by Babbage Press (first published 1986)

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Mar 22, 2012 Kat Hooper rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

3.5 stars

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

"Does the night seem uncommonly full of dead men and severed heads to you?"

Langdon St. Ives is a man of science and a member of the Royal Society. With the help of his dependable and discreet manservant, St. Ives prefers to spend his time secretly building a spaceship in his countryside silo. But currently he’s in London to help his friend Jack Owlesby recover a wooden box containing the huge emerald Jack’s father left him for an inheritance. Thin...more 3.5 stars

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

"Does the night seem uncommonly full of dead men and severed heads to you?"

Langdon St. Ives is a man of science and a member of the Royal Society. With the help of his dependable and discreet manservant, St. Ives prefers to spend his time secretly building a spaceship in his countryside silo. But currently he’s in London to help his friend Jack Owlesby recover a wooden box containing the huge emerald Jack’s father left him for an inheritance. Things get confusing when it’s discovered that there are several of these boxes that all look the same and all contain something somebody wants. Soon St. Ives, Jack, and a host of other friends and enemies become embroiled in a madcap adventure featuring a toymaker and his lovely daughter, a captain with a smokable peg leg, the scientists of the Royal Society, an evil millionaire, a dirigible steered by a skeleton, a tiny little man in a jar who may be an alien, a cult evangelist who wants to bring his mother back to life, a love-spurned alchemist who keeps trying home remedies to cure his acne, and a lot of carp and zombies.

As you may have guessed, Homunculus is zany and completely over-the-top in the right kind of way. The villains are meant to be caricatures — one of them is hunchbacked and another sneakily lurches around England with his head wrapped in unraveling bandages. They do stupid things such as leaving the curtains open while animating corpses for the evangelist to claim as converts, and tip-toeing up dark staircases carrying bombs with lit fuses. Blaylock’s bizarre but deadpan humor, in the absurdist British style (though Blaylock is American), was my favorite part of the novel. Even though Homunculus is packed with action and very funny when it’s in its farcical mode, the pace sometimes lags and the shallow characters can’t make up for it when that happens. Fortunately, that’s not often. The final scene is a screwball melee as all the heroes and villains, and thousands of London’s citizens, turn out to witness the story’s climax.

I listened to Audible Frontiers’ version of Homunculus which was narrated by Nigel Carrington who was a brilliant choice. There are a lot of similar characters in Homunculus, but Mr. Carrington made them distinguishable. He also hit exactly the right tone with the humor which ranged from deadpan to black comedy to zany farce. In fact, I would specifically recommend the audio version of Homunculus just because Nigel Carrington’s performance was a large factor in my enjoyment of the book.

If you’re in the mood for a surreal British comedy in the vein of Monty Python or Fawlty Towers, James P. Blaylock’s Homunculus will fit the bill nicely. Published in 1986, this is one of the earlier steampunk novels. In fact, Blaylock, along with friends K.W. Jeter and Tim Powers, all of whom studied with Philip K. Dick, are considered fathers of modern steampunk, and it was Jeter who coined the term to describe their work.

Homunculus won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1986.(less)

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Sep 08, 2008 Neb rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: lovers of Victorian fantastical fiction, Steampunk fans

Shelves: own

I'm a huge fan of James Blaylock, so my reviews of his work are going to be very biased. "Homunculus" is a dizzy romp through a fictional late 19th century London populated by daffy gentleman Natural Philosophers, grizzled but upstanding inventors and adventurers, wicked and perverted mad-scientists, and the tout-hearted and unflappable women who support them (the good guys, not the creeps). The characters are pretty archetypal and typical of a story of this genre as, say, written by H. Rider Ha...more

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Jun 02, 2013 Cécile Cristofari rated it 3 of 5 stars

Fair warning: this book has one of the steepest in media res opening I ever got the chance to read. Meaning, I think I understood next to nothing for the first thirty pages or so, and it only started to slowly come together after a few chapters (since I tried to re-read the beginning after I had finished, I'll say that the problem did not only lay in my limited capacity to focus: the opening really tosses a huge number of minute details about events and people and things that the readers cn't po...more

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May 07, 2013 Victor Gentile rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

James P. Blaylock in his new book, “Homunculus” a new book in Tale of Langdon St. Ives series published by Titan Books gives us another adventure with scientist/explorer Professor Langdon St. Ives.

From the back cover: It is the late 19th century and a mysterious airship orbits through the foggy skies. Its terrible secrets are sought by many, including the Royal Society, a fraudulent evangelist, a fiendish vivisectionist, an evil millionaire and an assorted group led by the scientist and explorer...more James P. Blaylock in his new book, “Homunculus” a new book in Tale of Langdon St. Ives series published by Titan Books gives us another adventure with scientist/explorer Professor Langdon St. Ives.

From the back cover: It is the late 19th century and a mysterious airship orbits through the foggy skies. Its terrible secrets are sought by many, including the Royal Society, a fraudulent evangelist, a fiendish vivisectionist, an evil millionaire and an assorted group led by the scientist and explorer Professor Langdon St. Ives.

Can St. Ives keep the alien homunculus out of the claws of the villainous Ignacio Narbondo?

If you like science fiction then this book is for you. I have to admit I do not know much about this genre “Steampunk” however I do know and enjoy Jules Verne stories and Mr. Blaylock has captured quite a bit of what Mr. Verne used to put in his stories. “Homunculus” is set in late 19th century London and is loaded with mad-scientists, villains, a dirigible steered by a skeleton, a tiny little man in a jar who may be an alien, and reanimated corpses. If you enjoy your fiction with science out of sync with the time period then this is for you. As for me “Homunculus” was a bit over the top for me. Too much what I call insanity and then there are the reanimated corpses. Never my cup of tea. Leaving that aside there is a lot of adventure within these pages you make the decision.

If you would like to listen to interviews with other authors and professionals please go to www.kingdomhighlights.org where they are available On Demand.

To listen to 24 hours non-stop, commercial free Christian music please visit our internet radio station www.kingdomairwaves.org

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Titan Books. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”(less)

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Jun 11, 2010 Tim rated it 3 of 5 stars

Corpses are animated in 1870s London by a hunchbacked fiend. A man sees himself as a new messiah. A blimp piloted by a skeleton stays aloft for years. A space ship is invented, and possibly a perpetual motion machine. A tiny man said to be from another world is kept in a small box, the harnessing of his considerable powers a tug-of-war in a deadly-fun game between armchair adventurers/inventors and baddies and their weird science.

Yes, it's more James P. Blaylock fun. As usual, Blaylock, whose mo...more Corpses are animated in 1870s London by a hunchbacked fiend. A man sees himself as a new messiah. A blimp piloted by a skeleton stays aloft for years. A space ship is invented, and possibly a perpetual motion machine. A tiny man said to be from another world is kept in a small box, the harnessing of his considerable powers a tug-of-war in a deadly-fun game between armchair adventurers/inventors and baddies and their weird science.

Yes, it's more James P. Blaylock fun. As usual, Blaylock, whose more typical venue for his inspired fantastical weirdness is modern-day coastal California, not Victorian England, is adept at throwing colorful elements together, and he writes well. But "Homunculus" doesn't mark the first time his plotting has been a little spotty. Still, this early Blaylock caper is a good ride.

As it might sound from the novel's description, Blaylock throws in a few too many elements in this one; the many members of the Trismegistus Club (good guys) and the competing (and sometimes cooperating) villains are either hard to keep straight initially or are just too plentiful, watering things down. He could have used another 50 pages to flesh things out. There is neither a central hero nor a main villain. And a few too many coincidences/conveniences and scenes with lazy plotting are flying about. One of our heroes often is able to monitor the hunchback's doings by watching from a next-door window — the villain doesn't cover his windows when he's doing his re-animation! This same villain captures a downtrodden man but leaves him in is laboratory, unfettered; the man escapes when the villain comes back and is preoccuppied. And a space ship's hiding place is uncovered by an intruder because the ship is left undefended for hours while two men seach for a prowler.

Oh, well. There's still plenty of fun, starting with some great names. Langdon St. Ives. Dr. Ignatio Narbondo (the hunchback), Birdlip, and my favorite, a villain with hideous acne named Willis Pule. Interestingly, one of the characters is called Captain Powers, an obvious shout-out to Blaylock's friend and sometimes collaborator, the excellent Tim Powers, whose writing sometimes mines similar veins to Blaylock's.

I can't speak for the book's availability outside the United States, but Americans are likely only to be able to find the Babbage Press edition. Be forewarned that the cover art on this small-press imprint (Blaylock's own? I'm not sure) is wretchedly simple and, inside, typos appear regularly, most notably misplaced or missing quotation marks and problems with periods. Readers also should note that Blaylock returned to the Narbondo/St. Ives rivalry with a sequel, "Lord Kelvin's Machine."

This is not absolutely prime Blaylock ("The Last Coin" probably is his best). And, sure, the plot sometimes lurches like one of the animated ghouls who are running all over hell, but a rollicking second half makes this a 3.5-star effort. (less)

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Jun 05, 2013 Monique Snyman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Homunculus by James P. Blaylock is a part of the “A Tale of Langdon St. Ives” series. Now, for some people who aren’t familiar with James P. Blaylock, let’s just say that he is often called a founding father of the steampunk genre. In other words, if you’re into steampunk, you need to at least get some Blaylock into your reading list. But I digress. The point is that Homunculus is a well written book that will give your imagination a great workout. Set in Victorian London, an alternative – steam...more

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Nov 13, 2012 James Cambias rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of my favorite books, a completely lunatic Victorian fantasy involving mad scientists, an alien being, grave robbers, anarchists, apocalyptic cults, a band of alchemical adventurers, a villainous sausage-maker, and the notorious Marseilles Pinkle. The story chronicles the adventures of the Trimegistus Society as they battle the sinister Dr. Ignacio Narbondo, while tracking a mystery airship piloted by a dead man.

Frankly, it's impossible to summarize the plot. This is the book that m...more

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Nov 11, 2009 Christopher rated it 2 of 5 stars

The first book I read by Blaylock was All The Bells on Earth .
All The Bells On Earth

That book immediately won me over. It was an exquisite example of what Dark Fiction (or Urban Fantasy, or the new Weird, or whatever you call the genre) can do. Unfortunately, since that book I just haven't found another Blaylock book as good.

This book wasn't bad, and I guess I judged it two ways.

If I judged it on its own, I probably would have given it a 2. It starts slow, I didn't really find myself enjoying...more

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Dec 17, 2009 Charlie rated it 4 of 5 stars

The plot takes place in a strange magical steampunky Old London Town. The streets are walked by preachers and zombies and zombie preachers. The skies are ridden by a skeleton pirate in a gondola under an airship blessed by a (nearly) perpetual motion device. There are alarms and excursions to the countyside where a moon rocket launch goes a little arwy. A strange small man with a lot of power is hidden in a box somewhere, so is an emerald, so is an aeration device for a moon rocket. Who has whic...more

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Mar 31, 2012 Rod rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-but-no-longer-own, steampunk-kinda-sucks-dudnit, fanta-c

I read this during a brief dalliance with steampunk. It was brief because of books like this. Weak characterization (or shall we say no characterization), and the bad guys are just plain ol' bad guys and the good guys are just plain ol' good guys and completely generic and interchangeable. Fun concept and good Victorian sci-fi/fantasy vibe, but you gotta give me more than that.

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Mar 02, 2013 John Pendergraft rated it 5 of 5 stars

Professor Langdon St. Ives and the Trismegistus club battle to keep the secrets of the universe out of the hands of evil industrialists, a depraved genius vivisectionist who re-animates the dead, and a fanatical cult leader. A wonderful story full of rich characters who you can only love or hate.

Favorite quote:

"The problem with the philosophers was that they were short of practical advice."

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Apr 09, 2013 Hearts On Fire Reviews added it

Reviewed by:Mallory
Genre: Historical Fiction/Steampunk
Rated: 5 Stars

Check out the review at: Hearts On Fire Reviews

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Jan 08, 2010 Catherine Siemann rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: neovictorians

I so wanted to like this book -- it's one of the first steampunk novels, and it features neat stuff like the Trismegistus Club and a sort of Flying Dutchman dirigible and the reanimated head of late 18th century mystic Joanna Southcote.

But like the skeletal remains of Southcote, it's just somehow not fleshed out. The characterization is all on the surface, and the writing just seems to skitter around from subplot to subplot, without sufficiently developing anything. It also harps, with mean-spir...more

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Nov 20, 2011 Gareth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

Hugely entertaining romp, mixing aliens, fantasy and Victoriana to dizzying effect.

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Sep 14, 2010 Velvetink rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: alternative-histories, sf-fantasy, read-2009

Bizarre & I loved it.

*note to self. Copy from A. (different cover and edition) scan later.

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Mar 17, 2013 Conrad Toft rated it 1 of 5 stars

I just couldn't get into this book and considered giving up at several points. Probably my last one from this author...

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Jan 19, 2012 Jason Shuttlesworth rated it 2 of 5 stars

A most witty book. Very VERY difficult to keep track of all the characters and the plot??? Well, it definately could have used one that didn't wander all over the place. It was hard to get into Homunculus and at times felt like I was walking through the ocean looking for seashells as the tide was coming in.

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Apr 10, 2013 Becky Loader rated it 4 of 5 stars

Nicely done story by the King of Steampunk: Mr. Blaylock. The author includes everything: an airship, animated corpses, dancing skeletons, an evil doctor, heroic heroes, and lots of top hats and gears. I will be reading more of this series.

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Jan 10, 2009 Hotspur rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: tsl-library, fantasy, alt-history

I found it ponderous, and the pacing quite slow. It is clear Blaylock is a lover of the written word, but if HOMUNCULUS is any indication of his skills, I will likely not read any more of his work.

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Jul 11, 2012 Owein Herrmann rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: steampunk

I enjoyed this book. It was well paced and funny. I had trouble following what was going on at times... I chalk that up to this being in England.

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Mar 31, 2013 Mallory Anne-Marie Forbes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Mallory Anne-Marie by: Hearts on Fire Reviews

Shelves: hearts-on-fire-reviews, 2013_reads, 2013-personal-reading-challenge, blue-challenge_mar15-apr15_2013, march-2013_reads, armchair-england, armchair-london

Reviewed for Hearts on Fire Reviews; will post here after published there.

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Oct 11, 2011 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, steampunk

An enjoyable steampunk tale involving infernal devices, mystery, alchemy, necromancy, and a miniature man.

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Jun 10, 2008 Bax rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

Wanted to like it more than I did.

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Jun 18, 2013 Chris marked it as to-read

Jun 18, 2013 Mirrol marked it as to-read

Jun 17, 2013 Dsreebny marked it as to-read

Jun 15, 2013 Eric Andersen marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Jun 14, 2013 Lindy is currently reading it · review of another edition

Jun 14, 2013 Thompson rated it 2 of 5 stars

Jun 14, 2013 Bribro marked it as to-read

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About James P. Blaylock

James Paul Blaylock is an American fantasy author. He is noted for his distinctive style. He writes in a humorous way: His characters never walk, they clump along, or when someone complains (in a flying machine) that flight is impossible, the other characters agree and show him why he's right.

He was born in Long Beach, California; studied English at California State University, Fullerton, receivin...more

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Homunculus (The Narbondo Series #2)

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