-
Homunculus
- The Adventures of Langdon St Ives, Book 1
- Narrated by: Nigel Carrington
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $20.72
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Lord Kelvin's Machine
- The Adventures of Langdon St Ives, Book 2
- By: James P Blaylock
- Narrated by: Nigel Carrington
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Victorian London, Alice, the wife of scientist-explorer Langdon St. Ives, is murdered by his arch-nemesis, the hunchback Dr. Ignacio Narbondo. St. Ives and his valet, Hasbro, pursue Narbondo across Norway, 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, which allows St. Ives to travel through time.
-
-
Excellent narration of a classic JPBlaylock novel
- By D on 02-21-13
By: James P Blaylock
-
The Anubis Gates
- By: Tim Powers
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Brendan Doyle is flown from America to London to give a lecture on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, little does he expect that he will soon be traveling through time and meeting the poet himself. But Brendan could do without being stranded penniless in the teeming, thieving London of 1810.
-
-
Yesterday… All My Troubles Seemed So Far Away
- By Doug D. Eigsti on 06-21-16
By: Tim Powers
-
The Elfin Ship
- Balumnia, Book 1
- By: James P. Blaylock
- Narrated by: Malk Williams
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trading with the elves used to be so simple. Every year Master Cheeser Jonathan Bing would send his very best cheeses downriver to traders who would eventually return with Elfin wonders for the people of Twombly Town. But no more. First the trading post at Willowood Station was mysteriously destroyed. Then a magical elfin airship began making forays overhead; Jonathan knew something was definitely amiss. So he set off downriver to deliver the cheeses himself, accompanied by the amazing Professor Wurzle, the irrepressible Dooly, and his faithful dog Ahab.
-
-
Fireside fantasy
- By wylie smith on 06-18-19
-
Perdido Street Station
- By: China Mieville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the center of the world. Humans and mutants and arcane races brood in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the river is sluggish with unnatural effluent and foundries pound into the night. For a thousand years, the Parliament and its brutal militias have ruled over a vast economy of workers and artists, spies and soldiers, magicians, crooks, and junkies. Now a stranger has arrived, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand. And something unthinkable is released.
-
-
Stick with it
- By Steph on 01-31-13
By: China Mieville
-
Morlock Night
- By: K. W. Jeter
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just what happened when the Time Machine returned? Having acquired a device for themselves, the brutish Morlocks return from the desolate far future to Victorian England to cause mayhem and disruption. But the mythical heroes of Old England have also returned, in the hour of the country’s greatest need, to stand between England and her total destruction.
-
-
Great Idea, Disappointing Execution IMO
- By Troy on 06-22-14
By: K. W. Jeter
-
Leviathan
- By: Scott Westerfeld
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the cusp of World War I, and all the European powers are arming up. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ fabricated animals as their weaponry. The Leviathan is a living airship, the most formidable airbeast in the skies of Europe.
-
-
Positively Addictive.
- By Tracy on 05-05-10
By: Scott Westerfeld
-
Lord Kelvin's Machine
- The Adventures of Langdon St Ives, Book 2
- By: James P Blaylock
- Narrated by: Nigel Carrington
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Victorian London, Alice, the wife of scientist-explorer Langdon St. Ives, is murdered by his arch-nemesis, the hunchback Dr. Ignacio Narbondo. St. Ives and his valet, Hasbro, pursue Narbondo across Norway, 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, which allows St. Ives to travel through time.
-
-
Excellent narration of a classic JPBlaylock novel
- By D on 02-21-13
By: James P Blaylock
-
The Anubis Gates
- By: Tim Powers
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Brendan Doyle is flown from America to London to give a lecture on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, little does he expect that he will soon be traveling through time and meeting the poet himself. But Brendan could do without being stranded penniless in the teeming, thieving London of 1810.
-
-
Yesterday… All My Troubles Seemed So Far Away
- By Doug D. Eigsti on 06-21-16
By: Tim Powers
-
The Elfin Ship
- Balumnia, Book 1
- By: James P. Blaylock
- Narrated by: Malk Williams
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trading with the elves used to be so simple. Every year Master Cheeser Jonathan Bing would send his very best cheeses downriver to traders who would eventually return with Elfin wonders for the people of Twombly Town. But no more. First the trading post at Willowood Station was mysteriously destroyed. Then a magical elfin airship began making forays overhead; Jonathan knew something was definitely amiss. So he set off downriver to deliver the cheeses himself, accompanied by the amazing Professor Wurzle, the irrepressible Dooly, and his faithful dog Ahab.
-
-
Fireside fantasy
- By wylie smith on 06-18-19
-
Perdido Street Station
- By: China Mieville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the center of the world. Humans and mutants and arcane races brood in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the river is sluggish with unnatural effluent and foundries pound into the night. For a thousand years, the Parliament and its brutal militias have ruled over a vast economy of workers and artists, spies and soldiers, magicians, crooks, and junkies. Now a stranger has arrived, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand. And something unthinkable is released.
-
-
Stick with it
- By Steph on 01-31-13
By: China Mieville
-
Morlock Night
- By: K. W. Jeter
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just what happened when the Time Machine returned? Having acquired a device for themselves, the brutish Morlocks return from the desolate far future to Victorian England to cause mayhem and disruption. But the mythical heroes of Old England have also returned, in the hour of the country’s greatest need, to stand between England and her total destruction.
-
-
Great Idea, Disappointing Execution IMO
- By Troy on 06-22-14
By: K. W. Jeter
-
Leviathan
- By: Scott Westerfeld
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the cusp of World War I, and all the European powers are arming up. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ fabricated animals as their weaponry. The Leviathan is a living airship, the most formidable airbeast in the skies of Europe.
-
-
Positively Addictive.
- By Tracy on 05-05-10
By: Scott Westerfeld
-
Something Wicked This Way Comes
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery.
-
-
Fun, Frightfully Fun
- By Andre on 10-23-15
By: Ray Bradbury
-
Steamborn: The Complete Trilogy Box Set
- By: Eric Asher
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 27 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A supernatural swarm. A treacherous scheme. A tinker's apprentice may be the village's only hope. This collection includes Steamborn, Steamforged, and Steamsworn. Grab it and crank up a whimsical thrill-ride today!
-
-
An Incredible Ride!!
- By Lady Meserole on 11-09-17
By: Eric Asher
-
The Dying Earth
- By: Jack Vance
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The stories in The Dying Earth introduce dozens of seekers of wisom and beauty, lovely lost women, wizards of every shade of eccentricity with their runic amulets and spells. We meet the melancholy deodands, who feed on human flesh and the twk-men, who ride dragonflies and trade information for salt. There are monsters and demons. Each being is morally ambiguous: The evil are charming, the good are dangerous. All are at home.
-
-
A Decadent and Hopeful Dying Earth
- By Jefferson on 06-27-10
By: Jack Vance
-
The Martian Chronicles
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor - of crystal pillars and fossil seas - where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn - first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.
-
-
The Original. Great Stories, Great Narrator.
- By Troy on 04-05-16
By: Ray Bradbury
-
Fool
- A Novel
- By: Christopher Moore
- Narrated by: Euan Morton
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pocket has been Lear's cherished fool for years. So naturally Pocket is at his brainless, elderly liege's side when Lear demands that his kids swear to him their undying love and devotion. Of course Goneril and Regan are only too happy to brownnose Dad. But Cordelia believes that her father's request is kind of...well...stupid, and her blunt honesty ends up costing her her rightful share of the kingdom and earns her a banishment to boot.
-
-
Mr Moore does it again.
- By Michael on 02-17-09
-
Retribution Falls
- Tales of the Ketty Jay, Book 1
- By: Chris Wooding
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frey is the captain of the Ketty Jay, leader of a small and highly dysfunctional band of layabouts. An inveterate womaniser and rogue, he and his gang make a living on the wrong side of the law, avoiding the heavily armed flying frigates of the Coalition Navy. With their trio of ragged fighter craft, they run contraband, rob airships, and generally make a nuisance of themselves. So a hot tip on a cargo freighter loaded with valuables seems like a great prospect for an easy heist and a fast buck. Until the heist goes wrong, and the freighter explodes.
-
-
Please record the rest of the series!
- By fierros on 02-19-18
By: Chris Wooding
-
Agatha H and the Airship City
- Girl Genius #1
- By: Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare. Sixteen years have passed since the Heterodyne Boys, benevolent adventurers and inventors, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Today, Europe is ruled by the Sparks, dynasties of mad scientists ruling over - and terrorizing - the hapless population with their bizarre inventions and unchecked power, while the downtrodden dream of the Heterodynes’ return. At Transylvania Polygnostic University, a pretty, young student named Agatha Clay seems to have nothing but bad luck.
-
-
Ever wanted visuals while audio book listening?
- By Amazon Customer on 02-11-13
By: Phil Foglio, and others
-
Speaks the Nightbird
- By: Robert R. McCammon
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 30 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Carolinas, 1699: The citizens of Fount Royal believe a witch has cursed their town with inexplicable tragedies -- and they demand that beautiful widow Rachel Howarth be tried and executed for witchcraft. Presiding over the trial is traveling magistrate Issac Woodward, aided by his astute young clerk, Matthew Corbett. Believing in Rachel's innocence, Matthew will soon confront the true evil at work in Fount Royal....
-
-
Dark, Twisted Period Piece with GREAT Characters!
- By aaron on 06-05-12
-
A Curious Beginning
- By: Deanna Raybourn
- Narrated by: Angele Masters
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the city prepares to celebrate Queen Victoria's golden jubilee, Veronica Speedwell is marking a milestone of her own. After burying her spinster aunt, the orphaned Veronica is free to resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry - and the occasional romantic dalliance. As familiar with hunting butterflies as she is fending off admirers, Veronica wields her butterfly net and a hatpin with equal aplomb, and with her last connection to England gone, she intends to embark upon the journey of a lifetime.
-
-
Incredibly self-indulgent of the author
- By Michelle on 09-18-19
By: Deanna Raybourn
-
The Invisible Man and The Time Machine
- By: H. G. Wells
- Narrated by: B. J. Harrison
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Invisible Man, a scientist theorizes that if a person's refractive index is changed to exactly that of air his body does not absorb or reflect light, then he will not be visible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but cannot become visible again, becoming mentally unstable as a result. In The Time Machine, we follow the Time Traveller to the year 802,701 A.D.. He finds a golden race of small, soft, innocent people. But what is it that lurks in the dark shadows?
-
-
When The Invisible Man ends and The Time Machine begins
- By kíli on 04-08-18
By: H. G. Wells
-
Typhoon
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Roger Allam
- Length: 3 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Typhoon is the story of a steamship and her crew beset by a tempest and of the captain whose dogged courage is tested to the limit. Captain MacWhirr was an ordinary man. However, when his steamer Nan-Shan blunders into a hurricane, he and his crew must pull together to survive. The steadfast courage of an undemonstrative captain and the imaginative readiness of his young first mate becomes a partnership vital to human survival as they are challenged from without by the elements, and from within by human doubts and fears.
-
-
A great classic, very well narrated
- By Dennis on 11-19-12
By: Joseph Conrad
-
Pariah
- Bequin: Warhammer 40,000, Book 1
- By: Dan Abnett
- Narrated by: Helen Keeley
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the city of Queen Mab, nothing is quite as it seems. Pariah, spy and Inquisitorial agent Alizebeth Bequin is all of these things and yet none of them. An enigma, even to herself, she is caught between Inquisitors Gregor Eisenhorn and Gideon Ravenor, former allies now enemies who are playing a shadow game against a mysterious and deadly foe. Coveted by the archenemy, pursued by the Inquisition, Bequin becomes embroiled in a dark plot of which she knows not her role or purpose.
-
-
Whistle like kettles, wheeeee!
- By helloHarrow on 03-04-21
By: Dan Abnett
Publisher's Summary
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.
A comic science-fiction novel first published in 1986. It took the Philip K Dick award that year, and was the second book in Blaylock's loose steampunk trilogy, following The Digging Leviathan (1984) and preceding Lord Kelvin's Machine (1992).
Critic Reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about Homunculus
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jefferson
- 12-01-15
Ghoulish, Picaresque, London Steampunk Farce
“Within the gondola, looking for all the world as if he were piloting the moon itself, was a rigid figure in a cocked hat, gripping the wheel, his legs planted widely as if set to counter an ocean swell. The wind tore at his tattered coat, whipping it out behind him and revealing the dark curve of a ribcage, empty of flesh, ivory moonlight glowing in the crescents of air between the bones. His wrists were manacled to the wheel, which itself was lashed to a strut between two glassless windows.”
That's the skeletal Dr. Birdlip (his eyes long since burned out by the sun or pecked out by seabirds) "piloting" his dirigible on its fixed and mysterious rounds. After fifteen years, the blimp may be about to land on Hampstead Heath in the London of 1875, an event of intense interest to two opposing groups. . .
First, the convivial members of the Trismegistus Club: scientist, inventor, and amateur detective Landon St. Ives, trying to put the finishing touches on his starship; his capable man Hasbro, reading the Peloponnesian Wars; ex-sea captain and current owner of the tobacco shop where the Club meets, Captain Powers, wearing a hollow ivory peg leg that doubles as both a flask for alcohol and a pipe (though he is loathe to smoke his leg in public); whimsical toymaker William Keeble, crafting eccentric "Keeble boxes" to hold oxygenators (for star craft), emeralds, and the like; efficient gentleman from Bohemia Theophilus Godal, adventuring and sleuthing, ever ready with a new disguise and never at a loss; a cloaked woman visiting the Captain after the other members have left; and ex-squid seller and current pea pot man Bill Kraken, alcoholic aficionado of metaphysics, dealing with his guilty past working for nefarious bosses.
Second, their villainous nemeses: hunchbacked Dr. Ignacio Narbondo, eater of live sparrows and reanimator of corpses of dubious vintage; "fat boy in curls" Willis Puel, pustulent student of alchemy and phrenology, resenting that a man of his genius should suffer from the boils on his face and the commands of Narbondo; Shiloh, aged and cracked counterfeiter and messiah with big plans for the blimp-heralding apocalypse, including the upgrade of his current converts from zombies to living humans and the revivification of his long deceased mother Joanna; Kelso Drake, millionaire owner of mills and brothels, using any underhanded means to get his hands on a Keeble perpetual motion engine.
And the homunculus? Shiloh believes that the imp is both his father and God, while the Club members figure he's a miniature alien of malign influence, now presumably being kept somewhere safe in a Keeble box (an imp in a bottle). St. Ives would like to find the homunculus' star craft to see how it works, said star craft being hidden in one of Drake's brothels.
The plot is full of memories and ambitions, triumphs and failures, breakthroughs and brainings. Blaylock puts his characters through strenuous and comical paces, as all of them, from the criminals to the Club members, are rather bumbling. Soon he has them juggling at least three different Keeble boxes, until it's hard for the players and the reader to tell which box is which, which may be the point. After all, the novel praises poetic impracticality (e.g., toymaker Keeble) and criticizes Benthamite utility (e.g., millionaire Drake): "Everything worth anything . . . was its own excuse."
Blaylock writes some spicy, funny, imaginative, and rich lines and passages.
--"His theories had declined from the scientific to the mystical and then into gibberish, and now he wrote papers still, sometimes in verse, from the confines of a comfortable, barred cellar in north Kent."
--"Darkened roof rafters angled sharply away overhead, stabilized by several great joists that spanned the twenty-foot width of the shop and provided avenues along which tramped any number of mice, hauling bits of debris and working among the timbers like elves. Hanging from the joists were no end of marvels: winged beasts, carved dinosaurs, papier-mache masks, odd paper kites and wooden rockets, the amazed and lopsided head of a rubber ape, an enormous glass orb filled with countless tiny carven people."
--"Even the farthest-fetched, vilest sort of religious cult could develop a sort of fallacious legitimacy through numbers."
--"Dogs are your man for tracking aliens of this sort."
If all that sounds appealing, it is--for the first half, when Blaylock writes some great descriptions and the characters are starting their picaresque paces, but as the second half progresses and the characters increasingly flail about (not unlike Narbondo's shambling zombies) without attaining their goals and the writing increasingly turns arch, I began longing for Dr. Birdlip's dirigible to hurry up and land to get the climax over with, and I stopped caring about the characters and events, doubting that it would all add up to anything very meaningful.
Thus the potent potential meaning of a passage from a book by Bill Kraken's metaphysical hero Ashbless in which mankind forms two camps ready to do battle, "the poets or wits on the one side, and the men of action or half-wits on the other," becomes lost in the noise of the good guys and bad guys chasing after each other and their goals like half-witted poetic men of action. When St. Ives wonders "What. . . did it all mean?" I wonder what meaning can such a farrago of ghoulish slapstick farce have?
Audiobook reader Nigel Carrington does a fine job with the rich writing and absurd antics: his gentleman voice for Godal, nasty voice for Narbondo, alcoholic voice for Kraken, crazed voice for Shiloh, etc., are all great, though sometimes in the heat of the action his voices may slip.
Finally, although its many absurdities began to cloy and smother its potentially interesting philosophical elements, I'm glad to have listened to Homunculus, and figure that fans of vintage steampunk set in London would probably enjoy it.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Josh Wilson
- 11-17-16
boring
4 chapters in couldend get into story boring just droned on. couldent get into it at all. after 4 chapters still no idea what was going on or why i should care
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Roger A. Kryzanek
- 03-11-21
Delightful Steampunk Adventure
One of Blayocks best novels. It's a fun fantasy that is brilliantly narrated by Nigel Carrington. it's well worth a listen.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Emily K Wagner
- 06-01-19
Fun book, fantastic narration
I'm still not sure whether like steampunk novels - anachronistic technologies have always fascinated me, but I have no interest in zombies - but this was an enjoyable introduction to the genre. Blaylock can write!
The audio performance by Nigel Carrington was top-notch. All of the characters were distinctively voiced without being over-the-top absurd (even though I couldn't always keep their names straight). And he did a great job of conveying the atmospheric writing without making it melodramatic cheese.
My only criticism of the audio performance is that it needed longer pauses for breaks in the text. There were a number of times where the narration sailed on, and it took me a few seconds to realize that the scene and characters had shifted somewhere else.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rowan W. Smith
- 02-06-14
Juggling chain saws and custard pies
What did you love best about Homunculus?
Blaylock is one of the few writers I've read who can effectively combine so many contrasting effects, making the whole much greater than any one part. His scenes use horror and slapstick, (sometime together; for example, the resurrection scene with the peafowl and the piano), disappointment, joy, excitement, tenderness, mystery (with and without a capital M), wonder. There are moments where grotesque evil triumphs, moments where the outcome of choices are morally ambiguous, there are scenes filled with adventure, despair and, finally, a satisfying resolution that leaves the door open for new adventures. As I said in the headline, his writing is like watching someone juggling chainsaws and custard pies. You never know if the next page will bring tragedy or helpless laughter. As to plot, well, it's unusual, to say the least, and part of the pleasure is trying to determine exactly what it is. Blaylock does not write typical fantasy stories with simple words drawing clear lines from simple beginning A to simple ending B, with the obligatory 1000 pages in-between filled with vampire love, magic swords, bloody battles, and black-or-white choices. He includes lots of conflict, defeats and victories. Just not what you are expecting if your usual reading consists of Tolkien-knockoffs and 5000 page "epics." Try Blaylock, and keep a very open mind. Heed Coleridge, and employ "the willing suspension of disbelief" and so awaken " the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us." Fits Mr. Blaylock's stories to a T.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Two that stand out for me are Shiloh, the messiah, and Bill Kraken, sometime grave robber and squid monger. Blaylock writes great characters, if you approach him without preconceptions. His secondary characters are terrific; and they are all woven inextricably into the fabric of the tale. Blaylock writes very unique, large-than-life characters, such as Narbondo, the evil genius. But even better, he writes Everyman characters who, through their actions, show that greatness has always been within; that each person is unique and not a stock actor. Yet Blaylock never moralizes; he let's action and dialogue take their course without telling the reader "look how noble this person is."
What does Nigel Carrington bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
He had the right feel for the story and the characters. He gave each character a clearly identifiable voice, but more than that, he incorporated the emotions and thoughts of each one into the narration. His voice trembles when someone feels strong emotion, sounding outraged, afraid, uncertain, or enlightened, as the situation requires. When people are bored, they sound bored. Carrington adds pauses, varies the tones and changes the pace to fit the action and situation. This was the first time I have heard him, and it will not be the last. A fine talent.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Again, it's hard to pick out just one moment. His scenes move from the informative to the horrifying to the comic to the thrilling. I don't want to describe any in detail, as I dislike spoilers.
Any additional comments?
Blaylock is under-appreciated. I would really like it if Audible offered his non-Narbondo/St. Ives books, such as "The Land of Dreams", "The Paper Grail", "The Elfin Ship" or "Night Relics."Finally, try his short stories. Many are wonderful. "Paper Dragons," which won a World Fantasy Award, is a good starting place to see how you like his style.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Christofer
- 12-05-12
Nice setting, but I couldn't get into the story.
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
A plot in whic I cared about any of the characters.
The action was too often distracted with detailed world-descriptions.
What was most disappointing about James P Blaylock’s story?
I wanted the characters to just get on with it rather than spending so long on the rich descriptions.
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Homunculus?
Leave it as-is. It's just not my style.
Any additional comments?
Beautifully detailed world. I could easily see, smell and taste it!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matt Lamour
- 05-21-12
One of the most painfully boring novels ever.
What disappointed you about Homunculus?
There is absolutely no momentum to the novel whatsover--- it just feels like a bunch of English people sitting aroudn being English-- and not even amusingly.
What was most disappointing about James Blaylock’s story?
Everything-- More than two hours into the novel it felt as thought nothing at all had happened, and none of the characters were even remotely likable. I despised this novel.
What aspect of Nigel Carrington’s performance would you have changed?
His performance is fine-- It fits the tone of the novel, which is stuffy and English.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
No.
Any additional comments?
This is supposed to be one of the key novels in the development of steampunk. If this were the only novel to push steampunk into existance, I can't see how the genre would still exist. Why would anyone want to replicate this?
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Katherine
- 03-22-12
Over the top in the right kind of way
"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.
Nigel Carrington was a brilliant choice for narrator. 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. On my website, I've specifically recommended 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.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall

- Sara
- 02-01-13
An epic to lose yourself in, brilliant narration
I'll be honest, this is one of those books that takes a while to get into. But once you get past the introduction and prologue, and settle into the proper action (chapter 2 on your download), Homunculus is brilliant. I love Terry Gilliam films like Baron Munchausen and Doctor Parnassus, so this type of story is right up my street.
The story is epic and detailed, and maintains a deadpan humour throughout, painting crazy characters and absurd situations in whimsical situations. This book is categorically not for realists, but a delightful romp. Nigel Carrington's narration is perfect in communicating the surreal British humour that runs throughout the whole story, and I loved the almost Blackadder tones he maintained for Langdon St Ives' character. If you enjoy the alternative magical realities created in books like Aaronovitch's River of London trilogy, and Kim Newman's Anno Dracula books, give this a go!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Christopher
- 04-09-16
Wonderful surprise
Any additional comments?
I've come back to this book time and again because I am always amazed by Blaylock's perfect capture of the texture and rhythms of the Victorian period of which he writes. Neither heavy-handed nor affected, his use of period sensibilities and language comes through not only in perfectly balanced dialogue, but also his sharply observed descriptions and well-paced narratives of action. His characters are at first an array of pantomime parodies (the baddie is a hunchback named Narbando? Seriously?), but they soon reveal their own personalities and unexpected complexities as the story unfolds. And we cannot ignore the story itself, of course. Throw a cast of characters like this into a landscape littered with all the possibilities of a twisted version of Victorian London, drop in the possibility of immortality, sprinkle with zombies, and of course you are going to get a good story, but Blaylock's weird and darkly humorous mind has made it a GREAT story. And the thing I love best about this book is how he treats both the characters and the landscapes: from the grand sweeping views of the London cityscape over which passes a dirigible flown by an animate corpse, to the intimate exchange between Langdon St Ives and the butler he believes he is fooling with a ridiculous disguise, Blaylock pulls it off with a perfect blend of warmth, detail, and style that would be intimidating if it wasn't so tongue in cheek.
I admit I began Homonculus reluctantly, with preconceived stereotypes of the whole steampunk thing, and very ready to dislike and mock the book. But I am ready to admit how wrong I was, and have gotten so much enjoyment not only from this book but other James P. Blaylock works in this and other series that I am grateful I took a chance on this all those years ago (still unsure about the steampunk scene, however).
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Ellyn
- 07-11-13
Good in parts
Is there anything you would change about this book?
If you’re eccentric, you’ll love this book. The characters are both funny and dark and believable. Some of the plot needed further development, but on the whole I enjoyed the story.
Would you recommend Homunculus to your friends? Why or why not?
Yes. Recommend they read Skulls first.
What does Nigel Carrington bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
Emotion
Could you see Homunculus being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?
Yes. three.
Any additional comments?
Found myself skipping bits.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall

- MRM
- 02-20-13
Such a shame
I so wanted to enjoy this - the subject sounds wonderful and there are great reviews all over the internet. However, to me it just reads like a third rate imitation of Douglas Adams. And why settle for an imitation when you can have the real thing? The humour just doesn't quite cut the mustard. Don't let me put you off, I realise I am in the minority due to the consensus otherwise on various websites, but I'd suggest thinking twice if you are a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide or Dirk Gently. Very disappointed.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Prester Jim
- 03-14-21
The Bill Sikes Crystal Egg Affair
Steampunk doyen, James Blaylock, stitches together a strange and sinister cast of refugees from Dickens and Wells for his faux-Victorian world of dirigibles, ancient astronauts, reanimated corpses, evil scientists and gentlemen adventurers before setting them all off on an entertaining MacGuffin quest that romps through a tangled web of fantastical plot threads and vivid ideas. Descriptions of the book as a "comic sci-fi novel" are misleading however, with the prose being more wry than rib-tickling, the story played as straight as such material allows.
So far as the audiobook experience goes, Nigel Carrington's assured voice moves the narration along in steady, shipshape fashion.
One for fans of Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart novels or M. John Harrison's Viriconium series.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Wren
- 02-26-20
God awful.
I,ve tried 3 times to get past the first 20 mins but it really is just complete garbage. It's exactly what happens when someone who is neither funny nor interesting is just filling the air/pages with words instead of saying anything.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Peter Davies
- 09-12-18
Couldn’t finish it
I got so confused with the lack of time and inflection in the performance, I had to buy the paperback and finish it “manually”!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Mark
- 08-28-15
Complicated story ,...but?
wasn't sure about this story at first although I was interrupted many times while I was listening. (I operate hydraulic a press).Anyway,before I passed judgement I listened again and enjoyed it. The story is bonkers but compelling James Blaylock has managed to merge sci fie, Dr Frankenstein and the age of Sherlock Holmes all in one book. Certifiable but fun!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Rob
- 09-23-13
Highly entertaining and original !
Nigel Carrington's performance was the driving force for this novel and eccentric story being so darned entertaining. He not only captures and differentiates the sometimes zany and off the wall characters with his talented voice... but the speed and delivery of the prose totally matches the mood of the moment. For example, there are many moments of slapstick bizarre goings on that would be under-appreciated without his delivery... Really quite brilliant.
So don't worry too much about deciphering the plot, particularly in the early stages, where characters and events are being established, just let Mr Carrington flow and enjoy it. It all comes together in the end...
Unusual, and highly recommended, and a great introduction to the next title, Lord Kelvin's Machine, which is even better.
-
Overall

- Mr. Jonathan D. Taylor
- 04-15-13
Fast moving, highly imaginative entertaining romp
Never a dull moment in this fast moving imaginative fun steam punk novel, really enjoyed it, but sometimes struggled to keep pace, but maybe that is just me! Excellent characterisations and well read by Nigel Carrington.