Morlock Night

by K.W. Jeter

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. FILE Steampunk [ Coming Back | It's About Time | Old Gods | Classic Steampunk ] With a foreword by Tim Powers and an afterword by Adam Roberts.

Genres: Steampunk, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Time Travel, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Adventure

314 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Kevin Wayne Jeter (born 1950) is an American science fiction and horror author known for his literary writing style, dark themes, and paranoid, unsympathetic characters. He is also credited with the coining of the term "Steampunk." K. W. has written novels set in the Star Trek and Star Wars universe, and has written three (to date) sequels to Blade Runner.

Series:
* Doctor Adder

Series contributed to:
* Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
* Alien Nation
* Blade Runner
* Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Wars
* The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror
* The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror

Reviews

[☮Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for a challenge. It was a challenge.

This is Steampunk, as I go with legs  kicking and arms flailing into a genre that two weeks ago I'd never even heard of.  Time machines; the infamous Merlin the Magician; an apocalyptic invasion;  long walks at night, not to mention a submarine ride, within the underground sewers of London.  What the heck.

Imagine what would happen if a gent from 1892 England invented a Time Machine, traveled millions of years into the future, and then died there.  Then that same Time Machine is used for travel back to 1892 by evil denizens of the future.  It's an invasion into Victorian London that can have no good outcome.  Will King Arthur himself be roused from the 6th century to save the day?

Imaginative, for sure.  A slightly comic, fun-nish read for a cold winter's day?  Perhaps.  The precursor to more Steampunk adventures for myself?  Doubtful!  With only 190 pages and being thrown into the action right from the start, there was very little room for character development, which I think at least was sorely needed for the female lead.  But at least it was short, and I didn't hate it.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A most enjoyable read and, if anything, I felt this book by K.W. Jeter was too short (at 322 pages). I picked it up to read as a sequel to "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells, one of my favorite science fiction novels of all time (published in 1895). If you remember the book, the Time Traveller, after returning to late 19th Century England, went "back to the future" to help the meek Eloi against the brutish Morlocks. In Jeter's sequel, we learn that the Time Traveller not only failed in his mission, but that the Morlocks have acquired his Time Machine and have learned how to use it. And they are transporting a Morlock army into the sewers of the London of 1892. From their subterranean lair, they threaten the England of good Queen Victoria.
Our hero is Hocker, described in Wells' book as "a quiet, shy man" who was in the room as the Time Traveller told his story about his adventure in the future world of the Eloi and Morlocks. Hocker has to find a way to prevent the "Morlock Night" of Jeter's book title.
An interesting Introduction to the 2011 edition of the book is provided by author Tim Powers. Powers states that it was Jeter who coined the term "Steampunk" in 1987. He also states that Jeter's "Morlock Night" is the book that "started it all." So, as the book was published in 1979, it began a literary movement before it was given a name. I suppose anyone interested in "Steampunk" should give this one a read. But it seems to me that Steampunk reached a peak of popularity in the early 2010s and I think by now it has run out of steam (sorry). Am I wrong about that? At any rate, "Morlock Night" is a fun fast-paced entertaining read.
Just don't go down into the sewers of London.

[Marvin · Rating 1 out of 5]

The idea of a sequel to H. G. Wells' Time Machine is irresistible. Morlocks stealing the time machine and invading England of the 1890s? Fascinating. If only someone other than K. W. Jeter wrote this. Someone who actually had respect for the classic science fiction story. Instead we get a jumble in which the original plot of the Time Machine is jettisoned for a mishmash concerning King Arthur, Merlin and the lost city of Atlantis. Even then this could have been salvageable if not for Jeter's poor ability to write. Or is it his poor ability to imitate H. G. Wells' own marvelous style? Probably just a poor writer doing a poor imitation. There is not much to like here. I find it amazing that readers have called this a milestone in Steampunk. It does not bode well for the genre.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

So what do I make of this book - good question and one I am not sure how well I can answer - especially so since I do not really want yo give the story away. However one thing I will say is that there is an introduction by Tim Powers which actually explains some of the points I picked up and the similarities to one of his books I read some years ago.

So the book, well first of all I didn't feel t was a sequel as such to the Time Machine (did I feel disappointed since I had gone out my way to read the original, I guess I should have been but I enjoyed re-reading it too much to be upset). This book as far as I was concerned too ideas from the time machine (and several others) and wove them in to a story that felt like Victorian England but was something totally different. In fact in the introduction Tim Powers explained that K W Jeter had never even been to England at that point let alone explored London.

So was I disappointed with the book - once I realised it wasn't so heavily connected to the Wells book I was a little but I quickly realised I was missing something more important I was missing a great ripping yarn, an impossible adventure which I can see now was at the forefront (and if you read some references even led) the steampunk revolution years ahead of its popular acceptance. As such this book had its own place in history rather than riding on the back of another and for that I am really pleased I read this book and in the end really enjoyed it.

[Ian Tregillis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn't for me, unfortunately. I'm a little surprised, and more than a little disappointed, to have to say that.

As a reader I'm attracted to big, wild, crazy ideas. If the ideas are cool enough, I'm more than willing to look past the parts of a book that don't work quite as well. And this book -- one of the original steampunk novels, written by the man who originated the very term -- practically boils over with wonderful ideas. A direct sequel to H. G. Wells's The Time Machine? Sign me up! Submarines, Morlocks, Victorian sewers, time machines, and King Arthur? How could this be anything but a wild romp?

Alas. I'm sorry to say this fell quite flat for me.

It begins with terrific promise, picking up just moments after the Time Traveler of Wells's novel has finished relating the tale of his far-future travels to his dinner guests. But then Merlin shows up, and things quickly get muddled.

Our hero, Edwin Hocker, is a completely ineffectual twit who spends most of the book demanding that other characters explain things to him. He's dragged from adventure to adventure by the people around him or, on multiple occasions, sheer dumb luck. His sidekick Tafe, the laconic warrior lady, is so thinly characterized that I frequently forgot about her entirely. She tends to disappear for tens of pages at a time, even when she's supposedly trekking right along with Hocker. The plot itself leans just a little heavily on plot coupons. (Although, in the coupons' defense, the notion of using a time machine to make multiple copies of Excalibur is pretty neat.) And when Hocker finally assumes something resembling a heroic mantle, the climax of the novel is related in passing, told to us in summary during the final 10 pages. Frustrating.

It's entirely possible that this book just happens to rub up against several of my readerly idiosyncrasies. This book receives high praise as being one of the progenitors of steampunk. Perhaps I'm just the wrong audience for it. One extra star for sheer audacity.

A note on the afterword included in this edition:

In his afterword ("K. W. Jeter, Morlock Night") Adam Roberts suggests that Jeter's brash and highly creative juxtaposition of Arthuriana and The Time Machine was intended as a "textual counterpoint" to Twain's A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court. Well, I dunno, maybe it was. But I think there's a simpler explanation. It's pretty well established that in the mid-1970s Jeter, Tim Powers, and a few other authors heard tell of a British publisher which was seeking to produce a series of books following the adventures of King Arther reincarnated during various historical periods. As Powers himself relates in the introduction to this very same edition, they haggled over the assignment of historical periods. Jeter won the Victorian era; Powers got the 16th century (hence his wonderful novel, The Drawing of the Dark.)

[ᴥ Irena ᴥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
How could I possibly resist The Time Machine sequel? If I were to label this in comparison to the present and popular steampunk books, it would hardly pass as one. I would not compare them though. This is steampunk. Hell, the author coined the term!
The story starts right after the dinner the narrator attended in The Time Machine. Edward Hocker leaves with Dr. Ambrose and gets dragged into a fight for saving mankind and Time itself.

There are more tropes in this story than it is necessary, but they don’t ruin it. There is mythical hero, a quest to combine four items, a sacrifice, a nod to Jules Verne, good vs. evil fight and a lot of others. The thing is, every time I thought that I knew what’s going to happen next, the author surprised me. Every time I knew who the next enemy was, someone else was in that place. Every time I thought that one thing would happen, something else mocked my expectations.

Don’t read this if you haven’t read The Time Machine (What are you waiting for anyway?). We know that the creator of the machine returned to the future and was never seen again. Here you find out that he was killed by Morlocks who used the machine to try to invade 1890s England and from there and then the world. But, England has her heroes who come back every time a threat such as this one comes along.

I would have preferred more insight into the Morlock society. The Morlocks the creator of the time machine encountered in were of lower class. The smarter and more capable ones were waiting for him when he returned. We only see one of those here.

I liked this very much even without the things I'd prefer (or with the ones that were too much).

[Sean O'Hara · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a mess this book is. It reads like a comic book written by two or three different people, none of whom ever spoke to each other about what the plot's supposed to be. I mean, okay, a sequel to The Time Machine's a cool idea, but then Jeter throws in King Arthur and Atlantis for no good reason. He disregards the whole point of the original novel to introduce intelligent Morlocks who capture the time machine and use it to invade the 19th Century. Why? Shits and giggles, I guess. We're never given any explanation other than "Morlocks are evil." And then there's this woman who turns up at the end who's the secret mastermind of the Morlocks, and we're never told who she is--Morgana La Fey--or why she's helping them--shits and giggles, again, I suppose.

This whole thing is on the level of Star Trek writers running out of imagination and turning the Borg from a hivemind into drones under the command of a slinky, smexy queen.

[David Merrill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an odd sequel to H. G. Wells' book, The Time Machine. Jeter interweaves Wells' creation with Arthurian legend and Atlantean lore. On top of that, Morlock Night is one of the earliest examples of Steam Punk. The author of the afterword credits Jeter with not only the coining of the term but also the founding of the genre. He forgets James Blaylock's The Ape Box Affair predates this novel. It's hard to believe they along with Tim Powers started a sub-genre with their books that became so popular today. I definitely recommend going back to its source, though, and Morlock Night isn't a bad place to start. Those who read steam punk and don't are missing some grand early texts. It would be like reading cyberpunk, but never reading Gibson's Neuromancer. Re-reading The Time Machine first is a must. Morlock Night definitely reads as a direct sequel, even with all the extra added twists. An interesting point made by in the afterword is the book may owe almost as much to Mark Twain's time travel novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It makes a lot of sense. CT Yankee has been on my to read list for decades. I think it might be the right time to finally read it. Stay tuned and we'll see if it actually happens this time. But I think Jeter harkens back to early fantasy also in this book. The sequences in the London sewers and rowing across the underground ocean call to mind William Hope Hodgson and other early creators of fantastic fiction. Those who criticize this book strictly on its science fictional merits rooted only to The Time Machine, I think, miss a lot of what Jeter was doing in this novel.

[David B · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Morlocks use the time machine to travel back to Victorian England in order to conquer the past and rule the world in this continuation of the HG Wells classic. However, they are unaware that England has a defender…

This odd novel reads like the product of a literary party game: draw two story premises at random and mash them together. Let’s see what I get...okay, a sequel to The Time Machine...and...here’s another one...the resurrection of King Arthur! This odd choice made a little more sense when I learned that the origin of the book was that it would be one installment in a series about the return of Arthur in various time periods. However, that doesn’t redeem it completely. The abandonment of Wells’ themes and the demotion of the Time Traveler to a bumbling plot device who dies offscreen shows a lack of respect for the original (and far superior) work. Despite these misgivings, I was frequently entertained by some fine action scenes and some unexpected plot twists. So I suppose I enjoyed it for what it was, but I wish it was something different.

https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

Originally published by DAW in 1979 as a sequel to Wells' The Time Machine, this edition has over twice the page count, an introduction by Tim Powers and a "scholarly afterword" by Adam Roberts. Powers credits the book with launching the steampunk genre, and both he and Roberts present it as being an exemplary work in the field. I would credit Richard Lupoff and Michael Moorcock and perhaps Harry Harrison with establishing the genre, but Jeter did indeed coin the word in 1987. As a sequel to The Time Machine I think it fails completely because rather than continuing the story it wanders off into a work of Arthurian fantasy mixed with lost Atlantis and doesn't acknowledge Wells' rigorous attention to scientific detail (remember it was the 19th century). In fact, I wouldn't even consider it a steampunk book at all, despite the London underground setting, because of the many elements that are clearly fantasy. It's not a bad or boring story, but I didn't think it came close to living up to the billing.

[EmBe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weiter unten meine Rezension, die ich beim Erscheinen dieses Romans schrieb. Der Autor steht bei mir immer noch im Fokus. Er prägte den Begriff Steampunk und hat auch einige prägende Romane geschrieben. Außerdem hat er Tie-In Romane zu Star Wars und Star Trek geschrieben, aber auch die "Blade Runner" fortgesetzt. Er ist in allen fantastischen Genres zu Hause.

Der Erzähler des Romans ist der junge Privatier Charles Hocker. Er gehört zu den Zuhörern, denen der Zeitreisende aus H.G. Wells Roman „Die Zeitmaschine“ seine Geschichte erzählt. Im Gespräch mit dem eher unheimlichen „Dr. Ambrose“ , der plötzlich im Londoner Nebel auf seinem Nachhauseweg neben ihm aufgetaucht ist, erweist sich Hocker als Skeptiker, der alles für eine gute Geschichte hält, aber eher indigniert darüber ist, dass sie als real dargeboten wird. Sein Begleiter dagegen verwickelt ihn in ein Gespräch, weil er das durchaus für wahr hält und die Geschichte weiterspinnt. Was wäre, wenn die Morlocks sich der Zeitmaschine bemächtigen würden, um London anzugreifen. Eine beängstigende Vorstellung, da könnte nur ein wiederauferstandener König Arthus Einhalt gebieten, meint eher beiläufig Hocker.
Dr. Ambrose verlässt den Erzähler, nicht ohne zu sagen, dass sie sich wohl bald wieder sehen würden. Hocker scheint sich verirrt zu haben, die Umgebung wird ihm immer unheimlicher. Erschreckt stellt er fest, dass die Innenstadt Londons brennt. Es sieht um ihn herum wie auf einem Kriegsschauplatz aus. Er hört Kanonendonner. In einem Explosionskrater trifft er auf die Soldatin Tafe. Er erfährt, dass die Morlocks die ganze Welt überrannt hätten und in London nur einzelne Widerstandsnester sich halten würden. Sie werden auch in einen Kampf mit einem Morlock-Trupp verwickelt. Als es gefährlich wird, werden sie von Dr. Ambrose wieder ins gegenwärtige London zurück transferiert.
Dr. Ambrose entpuppt zur Überraschung Hockers und auch des Lesers als der unsterbliche Zauberer Merlin, was seine überirdischen Fähigkeiten erklärt. Er hat Pläne, und dazu braucht er Hocker und Tafe. Denn tatsächlich ist Arthus reinkarniert, allerdings wird er von Merlins bösen Gegenspieler Merdenne in London gefangen gehalten. Er ist geschwächt, weil sein Gegenspieler, der mit den Morlocks in Bunde ist, sein Schwert Exkalibur mithilfe der Zeitmaschine vervielfältigt und so die Macht auf mehrere Schwerter verteilt hat . Hocker personifiziert hier gewissermaßen die Skepsis gegenüber dem von Merlin behaupteten, aber er und Tafe können sich seinen Plänen nicht entziehen.
Hier sei eine Zwischenbemerkung erlaubt. Der Roman hat hier das Genre Science Fiction verlassen, indem er Gestalten der Fantasy und magische Fähigkeiten einführt. Das mag für Puristen ein unverzeihlicher Verstoß oder Fehler sein, für den Leser ist es zweifellos eine faustdicke Überraschung. Aber der Roman verdient es durchaus, dass man ihm folgt.
Der mutmaßliche König Arthus wird befreit, aber nun müssen noch die Schwerter gefunden und vereinigt werden, damit Arthus den Kampf aufnehmen kann. Dazu müssen die Kämpfer in die Londoner Unterwelt absteigen. Einer von Dr. Ambrose Helfern, der ehemalige Tosher Tom Clagger führt sie in die Abwasserkanäle. Ein Tosher ist ein Kanalreiniger , in London ein eigener Berufsstand . Das, was sie bei ihrer Tätigkeit finden, dürfen sie behalten. Und was und wen man alles in der Londoner Unterwelt treffen kann, erfahren sie bald. Auch weil die Morlocks dort schon ihre Basis für die Invasion errichtet haben. Zur Handlung sei noch verraten , dass die Londoner Unterwelt nicht die letzte Station der Helden ist, die Handlung hält noch einige Wendungen und Überraschungen parat.
„Die Nacht der Morlocks“ ist reich an Handlung, wie schon die Inhaltsangabe zeigt. All das spielt sich auf nur rund 200 (allerdings eng gesetzten) Seiten ab. Es ist eine sehr ungewöhnliche Fortsetzung des Romans „Die Zeitmaschine“. Jeter lässt Hocker erzählen, und imitiert den viktorianischen Erzählstil recht gut, die Übersetzung von Michael Siefener kann das recht gut ins Deutsche hinüberretten. Natürlich geht das nicht ohne Ironie. Der Roman ist spannend und phantasiereich, Jeter mixt unbekümmert und clever zugleich bekannte Elemente und Erzählmuster.
Man merkt dem Roman den Wagemut des Autors an. Postmoderne Phantastik, die mit den Versatzstücken und den Traditionen ein ziemlich respektloses Spiel treibt. Die Nacht der Morlocks ist wohl der historisch erste Roman, der die Bezeichnung Steampunk verdient. Es steckt viel von der rebellischen Haltung des Punk drin. Ist auch wie Punkmusik eher einfach gestrickt. Gegenüber Jeters anderem Steampunk-Roman „Das Erbe des Uhrmachers“ fällt er eher schwächer aus. Wer ungewöhnliche Science Fiction mag, dem sei der Roman aber empfohlen.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a jolly old romp, written in 1979, but it doesn’t deserve the praise heaped on it by Tim Powers in his introduction and implicitly in the intelligent backgrounder by Adam Roberts at the end.

Powers’ own ‘Anubis Gates’ (1983) is vastly superior as one of the originating texts of ‘steampunk’

‘Morlock Night’ quite simply does not stand up to scrutiny as the equivalent of, say, ‘Neuromancer’, the genuinely well written founding novel of Cyberpunk.

Roberts does, however, usefully point out the equal debt that the book pays to a very different American classic, Twain’s ‘Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur’.

In fact, the book is quite poorly written with a version of late-Imperial Britain that reminds one of similar American failures to capture the authentic voice of England.

I was reminded of the lamentable performance of Dick Van Dyke in ‘Mary Poppins’ which caused every Brit to cringe in their cinema seat – in this case, mangling English literature through youthful enthusiasm.

The premise is that Jeter picks up where HG Wells left off in 'The Time Machine’ but he misses the point that Wells was writing a novella of science.

'The Time Machine' was a just-on-the-edge-of-believable tale of space and time as it might be accepted by a moderately educated European of the late nineteenth century.

Eighty or so years on, Jeter’s version has no credible science in it at all, not even within the late nineteenth century context it purports to represent.

With its simple prose and hackneyed representations of the English gentleman, it has little literary merit.

It is, however, maniacally fun. The book does have an insane energy, more like a comic book or Hollywood blockbuster than a novel.

H.G. Wells’ novel, the psycho-geography of London’s sewers, Arthurian myth, the legend of Atlantis and the trope of the ‘bad Hun’ (a hint of Wewelsberg) give us a rollicking mish-mash that certainly entertains.

Once our heroes go down into the London sewers, the book becomes an extended dream sequence masquerading as a novel. Indeed, one has to suspend belief because there is nowhere else to turn.

One suspects that the opiate pleasures of Coleridge and De Quincey might well be cited as sources!

The geeky post-adolescence of it all is epitomised in the portrayal of a female side-kick. Mr. Jeter clearly had no interest in mere girls.

We are given a tight-lipped cipher, Tafe, as if the author was at a total loss as to how to give reality to some fantasy that was in his head but was unable or unwilling to have translated on to the page.

This book is thus either of historical interest to genre historians or a way to lose oneself in nonsense for a day or so but it is not really much more than that.

My recommendation, since life is short, is that, if you want to see how modern science fiction writers have taken Wells and developed his story intelligently, you should go straight to two other books.

Try Steve Baxter’s ‘The Time Ships’ or to Christopher Priest’s ‘The Space Machine’. Both are masterpieces of genre fiction.

Having said all that, I did enjoy myself reading it and so might you. Just don’t allow anyone to tell you to take it seriously.

(The cover design of this edition by John Coulthart, who has an excellent blog on design called ‘{Feuilleton}’, is perfect and it certainly seduced me into the book. This will keep it in the library.)

[Elizabeth K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure how to rate this, because this book was hilariously hack. It was a quick, fun read in a high camp sense. I wonder if anyone has ever done a graphic novel version of this (the fact that I'm not even interested enough to look this up probably says something), because it seems like the kind of thing that would work even better with visuals, the Edwardian guy gaping at the Morlocks swarming all over London with an "OMFG!" look.

So yeah, it's a sequel to The Time Machine in which the Morlocks come back to London, and then ... you know, have to be stopped from their nefarious plans. There is also a submarine (which was confusing because where is it going to go?). It's a book where all the action just happens ... there isn't a lot of why involved, and what is there is delivered in goofy expositions.

But still, it was fun and moderately interesting to see some landmarks of science fiction come together -- clearly The Time Machine continues to be influential, and this book came about in the early days of steampunk so it does feel like it connects some dots if one is into that.

I also liked this quote, from the protagonist, who is one of the guys who was at the dinner in the Wells book where the inventor tells his story, and is then walking home in this book where he gets suddenly caught up in the Morlock invasion. Because who expects that, right? Anyway:

"The problem with secret knowledge, I mused bitterly, is that no one ever wants to tell you any of it." So I think it's clear that Jeter is in on the winkingness of it all.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

My other experiences with 'steampunk' novels (primarily The Bookman, The Court of the Air, and Perdido Street Station) all had a certain exquisite density of ideas that added to the Victorian splendor of the writing. It wasn't enough for Stephen Hunt to (also) have an underground body of water beneath the city sewers and the ruins of an ancient civilization. He elaborates detail after detail on the concept, fitting the situation into his ornate worldbuilding. Then again, this also explains his 582 pages, versus Jeter's 330 in this edition (thick pages, large print, wide spaced).

It's certainly made up for in velocity. This is a spare story, stripped of story and barely a sentence of love interest, and if you don't like what's happening, then wait twenty pages and it'll be entirely different. The velocity is sometimes slowed by the exposition, as the entire situation is explained to and discussed by the characters at some length.

I'm certainly going to check out more of his writing.

[Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read "The Time Machine" and Stephen Baxter's brilliant and amusing "The Time Ships", I just HAD to read this. What a shame. The story has much potential but unfortunately it's padded out with an element of fantasy, King Arthur and the search for Excalibur, that really does not belong and, in my opinion, ruins it.
It turns out that K.W. Jeter wrote the story as part of a project relating to the Arthurian legend, and NOT as a hommage to, and development of, H.G.Wells' story. To claim it as one of the first steampunk novels is to give it more credit than it deserves; there's very little steam or punk in it at all.
If you're looking for a good "response" to Wells, read Baxter. Much, much better than this.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the Time Machine returned to modern day Victorian England, it triggers a temporal paradox which threatens the future of the world, as a race of uber Morlocks follow the Machine home. Keeping his promise that he would return at the time of England's greatest peril, Merlin requests a sceptical attendee at the Time Traveller's dinner to locate Arthur Pendragon and return Excalibur to him, which will trigger the reincarnated Arthur's memory.

Jeter's short novel is a dark sequel to 'The Time Machine', very dark. The idea of the temporal paradox is brilliant, but the final twist in the tale is somewhat predictable. This does not stop the story from being excellent, indeed it almost lends itself to the inevitability of the temporal loop described in the plot.

[AJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Morlock Night follows Edwin Hocker, a guest of the Time Traveller from Orwell’s The Time Machine, as he walks the streets of 1892’s London fresh from the Time Traveller’s storytelling. He is met by a strange man identifying himself as Dr. Ambrose who asks Hocker to consider the implications of Morlocks and the Time Machine. After parting company, Hocker’s familiar London disappears in a cloud of explosives. In a flash the world has changed to a place overcome by the Morlocks described by the Time Traveller. These Morlocks however wear clothing and carry weapons. They try to make short work of Hocker when he is saved by a tough-as-nails woman named Tafe. She fills in the details about London that Hocker is sorely missing, and soon they are ambushed by Morlocks.
Waking after believing himself to be dead, Hocker is once again in the company of Dr. Ambrose. Hocker is told by Ambrose that the Time Traveller has brought about the end of existence through his interference in the natural flow of time. The Time Traveller, intent upon rescuing the Eloi from the Morlocks, loses his Machine to the Morlocks and is killed. A class of Morlock superior in strength and intelligence to the ones seen by the Time Traveller use it frequently and result in a ‘temporal implosion’ that effectively undoes the universe. After this revelation all but destroys the will of Hocker, Ambrose offers up a solution to the universe’s predicament: Ambrose is none other than the ancient wizard Merlin himself, and to defeat the Morlocks they only need to enlist the help of Britain’s greatest defender, King Arthur. Hocker and Tafe are charged by Merlin to rescue Arthur and restore Excalibur. The legendary sword has been desecrated by Merlin’s greatest foe and cannot be wielded by a weakened Arthur.
Merdenne, Merlin’s ancient foe, has sided with the Morlocks and has used the Time Machine to bring multiple copies of Excalibur into 1892. This has had the effect that the four copies divide the sword’s power—Excalibur remains a constant power regardless of the number of copies so each sword has one quarter of Excalibur’s full power. Incomplete, Excalibur cannot restore Arthur to health and strength.
Merlin promises to remove Merdenne from 1892 so that Hocker and Tafe can find the copies and restore Excalibur to the King. Hocker and Tafe head into London’s sewers where one copy is in the Grand Tosh, a pile of wealth lost to the sewers by surface-dwellers. It is here that the Morlocks have been amassing their army. The action comes to a head with Hocker and Tafe captured by the Morlocks and travelling forward though time to meet the architect of the Morlock invasion, but it is not at all whom Hocker and Tafe expected.

Morlock Night is a very unusual story, as it combines two very different stories: H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine and Arthurian Legends. I think it would have been better had the story not used The Time Machine as a departure point at all. Having read The Time Machine, I found Jeter’s interpretation of the Morlocks and the Machine itself to be too far removed from the original text. He invents characteristics for both the time machine and the Morlocks beyond the scope of Wells’s novella because it fits with his own story. I would have enjoyed it much more if the threat to Victorian London had been an original creation for Hocker to overcome, not one plucked from a completely different book. Keep Arthur but drop time travel. The Time Machine is a thought-provoking work of social commentary; Morlock Night, as the first work to receive the distinction ‘steampunk,’ was simple and action-driven. I was particularly disappointed when I read that while Hocker possessed one Excalibur, the three others had been taken to another time. By The author’s own explanation, Excalibur’s power was a constant so it should have all flown to Hocker’s sword the moment the other three copies were removed. The surprise ending was both predictable and a let-down.

[Ben · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ummm...I guess it's a "fun" idea, but this book is crap. Poorly written. Underdeveloped/boring characters. Basic, uninteresting dialogue. VERY predictable. Some of the major plot points are completely unbelievable or unimaginative. I had really hoped for better.

Apparently, this is the first modern-era steampunk novel. The author is also credited with coining the term "steam-punk". This is the only reason I gave it a second star. It's a cool idea to write adventure/sci-fi stories in Victorian England. So, for that the author gets credit.

At the same time, other than the ideas borrowed from H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, there is no imagination or creativity anywhere in this story. The author has merely assembled established story lines into some sort of...what? I don't even know what to call it..."modern" Arthurian tale?

The resolution to the story is ridiculous. Spoiler: the hero of the story is given the means to defeat the enemy by the enemy just in the nick of time. This enemy was a surprise to the reader when their identity was revealed...mostly because there were about five words devoted to them previously in the story. Again, underdevelopment of characters and plot points.

Nevermind. This book was so bad that I'm taking away the second star...

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting continuation of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, though written by K. W. Jeter. I thought it was a very creative story, which was narrated by Michael Page, who is my new favorite narrator.

[Caleb · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know why, but Steampunk is one of those subgenres that is extremely hit or miss with me. Sometimes I'll read something and enjoy it a fair bit, and sometimes I'll read something that just doesn't click. This didn't click at all.

It sounds like an intriguing idea to write a sequel to HG Wells' The Time Machine, and to toss in Arthurian legend into the mix to see what happens, but it didn't work. Not for me at least. I don't know if it's just how Jeter writes, but this felt very confused and all over the place at times, and when things finally do start coming together, it feels more pulled out of his ass than properly planned. I was just very annoyed as the book progressed and flat out disappointed when it was over.

Of course, as I read it in audiobook format, I had the added annoyance of the choice of voice for the main character, who does the vast majority of the speaking given most of the book is told from his point of view. I'm sure it's a very fitting voice, but it was so grating listening to someone doing an over exaggerated upper-class Victorian era British accent that just oozes stereotype. I absolutely hated him, and this book, by the end.

I probably would have dropped this but I paid for it, and even at only a few bucks, I was determined to finish it to justify my money spent, but I'm not happy about it. This is two crap books in a row now. I hope I don't make it three with the next thing I read.

[Tex-49 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Questo romanzo è un seguito de La macchina del tempo di Welss ideato da K. W. Jeter.
L'idea dei Morlock che, catturando la famosa macchina, quando il professore ritorna nel futuro, viaggiano a ritroso nel tempo fino al 1892 per invadere la Terra, è interessante, ma poteva essere meglio sfruttata, senza cadere in un improbabile fantasy tirando in ballo un Merlino ed un Artù, immortale l'uno, reincarnatosi periodicamente l'altro insieme ad Excalibur.
Per riempire il paniere ci ficca dentro anche dei manufatti di Atlantide e dei fognaroli che hanno scelto la vita nelle fogne a quella all'aria aperta!!!
In compenso la lettura scorre veloce!

[Kat Hooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally posted at FanLit.
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

K.W. Jeter’s Morlock Night (1979) is often cited as the first novel to be categorized at “steampunk.” In a 1987 letter to Locus magazine, Jeter coined the term in an effort to describe the types of stories that he and his friends Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock were writing:

Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of that era; like ‘steam-punks’, perhaps.

As Tim Powers explains in his introduction to Morlock Night, Jeter wrote this book in 1976 for a British publisher who requested ten novels about King Arthur being reincarnated to come to England’s rescue at different points in that country’s history. Powers, Blaylock and Jeter agreed to write the novels. When they divvied up the history, Jeter ended up with the Victorian era.

For Morlock Night, he decided to write a steampunk “sequel” to H.G. Well’s The Time Machine. The premise is that the Morlocks, those brutish troglodytes who are our far-future descendants in Wells’ story, used the time machine to travel back to Victorian London where they plan to take over the city. Their use of the machine has created a channel in time that could make time collapse. Thus, it’s not just England that’s in danger, but the entire universe.

King Arthur, who keeps being reborn but never realizes who he is until he’s needed, must come to the rescue. To do this, he’ll need Excalibur which, unfortunately, has also been traveling through time and has been divided into three parts. The narrator of Morlock Night, along with an adventurous woman wearing men’s clothing, must find the Excaliburs so that Arthur can get his power back. This requires various excursions into the seedy parts of London and its sewers.

I think it’s important to remember the purpose of Morlock Night (a steampunk story about King Arthur) when judging the novel. As a madcap Victorian adventure fantasy, it works well enough, and is similar in many ways to Jeter’s Infernal Devices. The plot is quick, a bit silly, and doesn’t hold up well to excessive scrutiny (e.g., Why is Arthur the only one who can beat the Morlocks? Doesn’t England have an army for this?). Characterization is thin (e.g., What is the woman in men’s clothing doing there? She doesn’t contribute much and it’s easy to forget she’s tagging along, though our narrator mentions that she makes a good companion. Is she a counterpart to Weena, the Time Traveler’s female companion in The Time Machine?) Nevertheless, the setting feels genuine and the humor feels appropriately Victorian (e.g., I thought the toshing in the London sewers was hilarious).

So as a steampunk adventure, which is what it is, Morlock Night is successful. But as a “sequel” to The Time Machine, as some (including Wikipedia) have called it, it doesn’t work very well. The story contains many elements of, and allusions to, The Time Machine, but it’s not meant as pastiche. The focus is definitely on wacky exploits in a foggy gas-lit London and not as a continuation of Wells’ thought-provoking warning about a possible future of human society. If you’re expecting a sequel to The Time Machine, you’ll be disappointed. If you’re expecting to read the first steampunk novel, you’ll probably be satisfied.

Thanks to Angry Robot for publishing this classic and to Brilliance Audio for putting it in audio format. Michael Page does a great job with the narration. I don’t like his voice for the woman (but she doesn’t speak much), but I thought he sounded just like a 19th century Englishman.

[Costa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Morlock Night - The Seminal Steampunk Novel.

One could be terribly critical and use the correct terms, deconstruct the plot and characterisations explain exactly why one didn’t find a novel worthy, in terms others (and even ones self) probably wouldn’t fully understand.

Or one could get right to it: I didn’t like this book - and I really, really wanted to like it - but it was silly.

The first couple of chapters are a fine introduction and really rocket along, with the story picking up directly where H. G. Wells’s story ends, with the original protagonist’s final journey into the future and one of his dinner guests confronting the results of the meddled timeline. The confusion and altered universe is well captured, and the befuddled hero of this novel is a delight as our eyes and ears into a London under attack from an altered future.

The appearance of magic and myth in a quasi-scifi novel was unexpected, but not jarring. It is a work of fiction after all. So to, the appearance of a female tough-as-nails soldier as the hero’s offsider had the makings of an interesting characterisation - this is late Victorian England, after all: no Rambolinas here, thank you sir! - but she just...drifts off and really doesn’t do that much.

My biggest problem is that the over-use of deus ex machina - literally god from the machine, for example ”...he was outnumbered, when suddenly a host of angels swooped down and saved him. That was close!” - in the novel destroys the suspension of disbelief, and unfortunately it is used at the very climax of the novel, robbing it of any remaining power or surprise.

I finished the novel, and I wanted to like it, but it didn’t appeal to me because it was too silly. It gets its marks for the effective and well written opening chapters.

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morlock Night is a sequel to H.G. Well’s Time Machine. The Morlocks have gotten hold of the time machine and are rampaging through time, bent on conquering Victorian London and the world. They are opposed by none other than Merlin and King Arthur. There is also a touch of Atlantis in this cocktail. Yes, the blood of the Atlanteans flows in English veins.

The clicheés of the times (Morlock Night was first punlished in 1979) do not end there. The lines of good and evil are also very clearly drawn. The English are good, pure Christians while the Morlocks are guided by an old Nemesis of Merlin and an enemy to all Christendom. The Morlocks’ behaviour and language is as far as it can be from civilized Britain: Their language sounds like a bastardized version of German and Slavic tongues blended together and they also use their hands a lot while talking, in the manner of the Italians. The crowning moment comes when the Dark Castle, the base of operation for the Morlocks, is visited: It is lockated in an alternate timeline it what will one day be… Germany!

Despite what you may think now, Morlock Night is an excellent read. The clicheés are bad but you can regard them with some temporal distance and that makes them rather cosy and quaint. The plot is transparent but it does not hurt the enjoyment at all. I was both rather charmed and enthralled by Morlock Night, I could not put it down. In fact, I finished it in one sitting. Morlock Night grips you with the tension and action in it, it makes you laugh with all the bad tropes and clicheés and shows you how much development has been in the scene in the last 20-odd years.

[Catherine Siemann · Rating 3 out of 5]

By now the Jeter/Blaylock/Powers origins of steampunk are legendary; I really didn't like Blaylock's Homunculus, and while I found Powers' The Anubis Gates wonderfully imaginative, overall I didn't care for it nearly as much as I did the darker and more ambitious early steampunk The Difference Engine (Gibson & Sterling) or Powers' own play with the Romantics and the lamia legend in The Stress of Her Regard.

So I approached this one nervously; was I going to strike out completely with the Original Steampunks? Having just finished rereading H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, to which this book sets itself up as a sequel, I thought I'd give it a try. And . . .

this book is, as they say, on crack. All the crack in the world. It is absolutely insane . . . there are Atlantean submarines in the sewers of London and Morlock troops have commandeered the Wellsian Time Machine and are colonizing the past and somehow a gentleman claiming to be Merlin shows up in the midst of all of this . . . It's hilarious and though it's not played as a comedy, it's playful enough that it can stand being taken lightly.

The prose is creditable and barring a few anachronistic moments I can buy the protagonist as a Victorian gentleman thrown in the midst of all this insanity. The Angry Robot reprint also has a useful introduction by Tim Powers, explaining how the novel came about. I'm not sure this book is good, exactly, but it is good fun.

[Fred Hughes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the earliest Steampunk stories.

It starts at the end of a night with HG Wells who has told his friends about his adventure with his time machine. Unknown to Wells is that the Morlocks he visited in Earth’s distant future have taken his machine and are busy planning an attack on Earth.

Our protagonist Mr Edwin Hocker was at the story telling session and is on his way home after drinking way too much. He is accosted by a very pale man who questions him on what Well’s stories are really about. All Hocker wants to do is get home and sleep it off but this darn man keeps asking him the silliest questions like “It’s 1892 is it ?” . Of course it’s 1892!

Soon Hocker is whisked away to an England that he doesn’t recognize and is immediately attacked by the Morlocks.

Shortly therafter Hocker is on a quest to find Arthur’s sword Excalibur which has been split into 4 weaker pieces. Soon the Arthurian age is enhanced with the appearance of Merlin.

Hocker finds his true calling near the end of the story with a true plot twist.

A great Steampunk story with Arthur and Merlin mixed in. Oh yeah, and let’s not forget the Morlocks.

It would have been one more star if there was more of the steampunk genre included.

Great fun to read.

[Maitrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is considered to be the pioneer in the "steampunk" genre, something I've been fascinated with recently. In fact the label "steampunk" was coined the author of this book K.W. Jeter.

The only good thing I can think about this book is that moves at a fast clip. The characters are poor (the female protagonist disappears for pages on end, even when she is supposed to be walking right next to our hero), and the plot is faintly ridiculous. The only steampunk-y bits are sub-marines, and a time machine (Jeter calls this book as a sequel to Wells's Time Machine). The writing is pulpy, and the praise that Tim Powers heaped in the introduction of my edition of this book appears quite misplaced.

I hope the other "seminal" steampunk books don't turn out to be disappointments like this one.

[Chip · Rating 4 out of 5]

A steampunk with lots of action, along with a style similar to Well's original Time Machine (strong primary narrative/character). The flaw with Victorian aged writing is the secondary characters are commonly weak - this is no exception. Expands the role of the Morlocks that we seen many times since this was originally written - 1979. If you are a fan of authors like Tim Powers and strong sequels, you'll like this one.

[Chris King Elfland's 2nd Cousin · Rating 4 out of 5]

NOTE: This review was originally published at The King of Elfland's 2nd Cousin on April 26, 2011. If you want more reviews like this one, please check it out!

The best science fiction is protean by nature, combining facets of just about every other genre and defying neat classification within the bounds of SFdom. K.W. Jeter’s Morlock Night straddles many sub-genre fences: Victoriana secret history, steampunk, and Arthurian legend. Originally published in 1979, the book is judged one of the progenitors of the steampunk sub-genre, and its author as credited with inventing the steampunk label (in a 1987 letter to Locus). Having heard of the book but never read it, I was jazzed to read the new edition from Angry Robot. I was especially curious to see how one of the earliest steampunk novels compares against contemporary clockwork fare, and I am happy to report that thirty-two years from its initial publication Morlock Night remains an enthralling, atmospheric, and fast-paced read.

Morlock Night was originally written as part of a ten book Arthurian series which was to be written by Jeter, Tim Powers, and Ray Nelson (alas, the series never took off). The concept was to show King Arthur reincarnated (or awoken) at various points throughout history when Britain needs saving. This fact is intrinsic to Morlock Night , and at one level firmly sets the book in the Arthurian tradition. However, Jeter’s execution of this concept is unique and exceptional.

The book takes place in London in the autumn of the Victorian era. Like the best contemporary steampunk and alternate history authors (e.g. Cherie Priest or Michael A. Stackpole), Jeter uses voice to establish his character’s in time. The story is told in first-person perspective through the eyes of Edwin Hocker, and his word choices and sentence constructions are firmly rooted in the cadences of the late Victorian era. In the hands of a lesser author, such vocal tricks might make the prose dated or stilted to modern sensibilities. Perhaps, if Jeter had chosen to employ third-person perspective, that might well have been the case. But by choosing to tell the story through the eyes of Edwin Hocker, the story gains immediacy in spite of the distancing typical of late Victorian writing styles.

We meet the questing hero as he departs from a dinner party. At this dinner party, Hocker was regaled with an incredible story about travel to the far distant future, and the strange creatures his host encountered on the way. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it should: Morlock Night is actually a sequel to H.G. Wells The Time Machine (which itself was first published in 1895, three years after the events of Jeter’s book).

Jeter builds much more immediacy into his story by eschewing the framing narrative that Wells employed. We meet Edwin Hocker as he departs the dinner party that frames Wells’ classic, and our hero is then swiftly sent by the mysterious Doctor Ambrose (Merlin) to a war-torn future London where he must fight and flee Morlock invaders sweeping across time to take over the world. Jeter does an amazing job establishing the setting for the story. The first chapter takes place on the foggy streets of London, late at night, after the close of the dinner party. Jeter’s narration is atmospheric – literally, and figuratively – and the fog gradually seeps into both his character’s perception and the reader’s. The brooding city streets, the hazy lights gas lamps, the damp: these are elements that one feels reading the book. When Hocker is thrust into the future, the rubble-strewn London he finds himself in remains recognizable, though shattered as if by the Blitz.

Ambrose pulls Hocker (and a woman he meets in that war-torn London) back to the Victorian era, and uses the traumatic experience to convince Hocker to save Britain. Ambrose explains that the dim-witted Morlocks described in The Time Machine were but the Morlock’s uneducated working class, and that when Wells’ Time Traveller returned to the future following the dinner party, the ruling Morlocks captured him, and used the time machine to travel back to 1892. Now, with the aid of an Anti-Merlin character, the Morlocks intend to conquer the past. And this risks unraveling time and destroying the universe. To save the day, Merlin needs Hocker to free the reincarnation of King Arthur from the clutches of that Anti-Merlin, and to reunite the reincarnated king with the scattered pieces of Excalibur.

The plot itself is fairly straightforward, with a standard quest-based structure: step one, step two, complication, step three, complication, climax. But despite the prosaic structure, the characterization, world-building, and pacing make the book a delight to read. The quest for Excalibur takes Hocker into the sewers beneath London, and Jeter’s descriptions of this dark and dank environment are by turns chilling, thrilling, and fascinating. Loving the real London as much as I do, I can easily imagine the detritus of two thousand years washing up beneath London’s twisting alleyways.

It is in those subterranean environments that Jeter comes closest to employing the tropes of the modern steampunk movement. Looked at from the perspective of a modern reader, Morlock Night has a notable dearth of steampunk conventions. There is little (if any) real clockwork, no steam-powered machinery that I can recall, and certainly no airships. The closest approximation is an ancient Atlantean submarine which figures prominently in Hocker’s adventures in the London sewers. But that is a strange, foreign, and ancient technology: neither a product of the Victorian era, nor an extrapolation of Victorian-era technology.

Jeter doesn’t use the steoretypical steampunk devices because the story simply does not need them: it is centered around the character of Edwin Hocker, and the challenges he faces. Technology is incidental to that, and so Jeter wastes no time lovingly describing it. And despite the lack of steampunk window dressing, the book remains undeniably steampunk. In many ways, it is the quintessential steampunk novel: every element – including technology – is seen through the eyes of a late Victorian-era narrator, with the concomitant sensibilities, values, and preconceived notions. That grounds the book in the Victorian era, and conveys that undeniable feeling of almost-plausibility that is characteristic of the best steampunk. At the same time, Jeter’s careful attention to setting, and the atmospheric, layered descriptions root the story firmly in the London of 1892.

Despite its many strengths, the book does have two weaknesses. The first (minor) weakness is that I found the end of the story a bit predictable. That might be because I’ve read plot structures like this one many times over, or it might be because Jeter’s careful foreshadowing built a certain inevitability into the story. However, the book’s predictability is only a minor weakness; even if I was able to guess how it ended, I still loved the ride. The tension remained high, and I continued to be avidly engaged in the story long after I’d figured out the end. That fact is a testament to Jeter’s excellent management of pacing and tension.

The second weakness I consider more substantial. Early in the book, Hocker meets a woman named Tafe in the war-torn future version of London. She returns with him to his own time, and proceeds to be his companion on his various adventures. She represents Hocker’s love interest (of sorts), and a device for furthering plot and motivation in certain key scenes. When we first meet Tafe, she is in charge: much more strong-willed and competent than our hero, Hocker. But as the book progresses and Hocker takes the fore, Tafe recedes. I was disappointed by this perceived weakening of the character. I understand why it happened, and I understand why it might even have been necessary. But I would have preferred it if Tafe continued to have the strength of character and personality that she had initially.

On the whole, I am inordinately pleased that Angry Robot has reprinted Morlock Night . I especially enjoyed Tim Powers’ introduction and the afterward by Adam Roberts’. For fans of genre history, I recommend reading both essays as they provide valuable perspective on the significance of Jeter’s book. As for the book itself, I consider Morlock Night a must-read for any fan of steampunk. Three decades after its initial publication, it continues to be an excellent, enjoyable, fast-paced story. Fans of Cherie Priest, George Mann, and Gail Carriger will find much to love.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea of a sequel to H. G. Well's The Time Machine intrigued me since I had fond memories of the original classic. However, this story falls short in originality and character development.

Morlock Night reveals the terrible consequences of the journey in the original novella that will lead to a catastrophic end for the human species. Hocker, who has heard the adventures of the original time travel story, dismisses it as poppycock, only to discover that not only is that tale true, but it will turn his own world upside-down and he will be sucked into undoing the damage.

Jeter maintains the voice of the era, but even accounting for this, Hocker's initial dismissive comments about the skills and fortitude of his companion Tafe, induce eye-rolling as his attitude is based purely on the fact that Tafe is a woman. If someone is saving your life and is clearly your superior in physical skills, perhaps you should shelve your assumptions?

Hocker's story and perspective is presented as primary, which is understandable, since he is the narrator, but his contribution to the progression of the story seems to outweigh the work of all contributors, which does not feel deserved (more on this in the Spoilers) and adds to his unreliability as a narrator.

After all the long drawn-out details in the story, the last chapter is rushed and minimize the danger or close calls, which makes one think that spending so much time on the details up to this point was unnecessary.

Jeter also invokes some longstanding legends to carry out his story, and feels a bit lazy as story-writing, as it requires little worldbuilding, particularly for a book that is already a sequel to another person's tale.

The details of the original tale are blurry in my mind, but this story almost makes me wonder if I supported the wrong side and need to re-read it.

****
The other issue with this book is it relies on other legends to do the hard work. There is little need to build up a world of intrigue because Jeter has thrown in Arthurian and Atlantean legend rather than creating anything new.

Additionally, Tafe's fate seems undeserved considering her significant contribution, particularly in the light of Hocker's minimal contributions. Indeed, as a primary character, he reads as a character along for the ride, and yet gets much of the glory. While the reason for this is revealed late in the tale, if you haven't guessed why, it seems like an easy reason for this, which is all down to fate or inheritance, rather than being earned.