This is a rather zany work about a clockmaker who unwittingly repairs a piece of exquisite World War 2 machinery that, it turns out, is a weapon of mass destruction. Which falls into the hands of a madman in cahoots with shadowy elements of the British government, of course.

I enjoyed the plot quite a bit; it moved quickly and was fun to follow, even though it was a bit intricate in parts, much like the machinery at the center of the story. Moreover I enjoyed the steampunk ethos of the book; there is something delightful about the way the book describes elegant, high-quality mechanical designs. More than a few times I found myself wishing that I could take a tour of the Lovelace, the uniquely designed, solidly built train that is a focal point of two different plotlines.

I can’t say much the same for the characters, who by and large I found a little flat and uninteresting. Even our hero, who undergoes a dramatic transformation as he learns more than a few things about his family background, is just not that exciting - he’s a bit of a useless sap in one scene, and a sort of hollow pig in another, and neither one of these angles is all that flattering. Setting that aside, this work has a certain anti-statist ideology which I found a little simplistic and uncompelling. It’s a concept that is both deeply cynical, and very uninformed, about the way government works - and while I can appreciate cynicism, I just don’t like uninformed cynicism.

All the same, this book is a great deal of fun, and sits nicely in the intersection between science fiction, steampunk, and adventure writing.