Homunculus

by James P. Blaylock

First published 2000

Langdon St. Ives finds himself caught in the bizarre underbelly of 1870s London, where the impossible has become routine. Dead men command flying vessels through foggy skies while the living scheme to steal ordinary carp for extraordinary purposes. The city pulses with contradictions that defy reason. A simple evening of sausages and beer at the neighborhood tavern might condemn a man to spend forever at the Blood Pudding alongside other walking corpses. St. Ives navigates this world where death offers no escape from duty and where the most mundane objects carry mysterious significance. The boundary between life and death blurs in a metropolis that operates by its own twisted logic. Here, reanimation is just another fact of existence, as common as the Thames fog. St. Ives must survive in a place where nothing stays buried and every choice carries supernatural consequences.

Genres: adventure, fantasy, 19th-century, alternate-history

Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful

Tropes: found-family, supernatural-consequences

Setting: London

Period: 1870s

248 pages · Paperback · Babbage Press

Content warnings: death

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