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Queen Victoria's Bomb
A sudden intolerably bright fireball lights up a remote and deserted Indian plateau. Searing heat melts rock into incandescent pools of glowing liquid. The earth heaves. A monstrous thunderclap of sound reverberates over the land. An ominous mushroom-shaped cloud boils skywards. For years afterwards, strange plants and even stranger human mutants are discovered in the area, warped spawn of a mysterious and deadly force.
Just another atomic test? Not exactly. Because it was Professor Huxtable's brainchild. And the professor is one of the most devoted and loyal servants of Queen Victoria…
Just another atomic test? Not exactly. Because it was Professor Huxtable's brainchild. And the professor is one of the most devoted and loyal servants of Queen Victoria…
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
5 people are currently reading
141 people want to read
About the author
Ronald William Clark
62 books24 followersRonald William Clark was a British author of biography, fiction and non-fiction. He was educated King's College School. In 1933, he embarked on a career as a journalist, and served as a war correspondent during the Second World War after being turned down for military service on medical grounds. As a war correspondent, Clark landed on Juno Beach with the Canadians on D-Day. He followed the war until the end, and remained in Germany to report on the major War Crimes trials. After his return to Britain he embarked upon a career as an author.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 20, 2013
Felt like I was reading a H.G. Welles story. Liked the morale of using a weapon of mass destruction. The Queen and Prince was well written. Awesome I read a copy of this book through inter-library loan from the Lebanese American University from Beirut Lebanon.
June 28, 2017
This book's commonly touted as one of the precursors of the steampunk movement. It dates from 1967 and though I'd been keen to read it, I hadn't found a copy. Having an interest in steampunk - the literature, not the habit of sticking cogs onto anything and wearing goggles down the shops - I figured that a three-ish buck version on Kindle was a safe enough bet.
Turns out my cash and my hopes weren't misplaced. For a couple of dollars, I read something which suggested atomic weaponry was developed in the 1850s, and tracked the life of its inventor as he attempted to dodge government and military obligation in an effort to make such destructiveness a sober warning rather than bloodthirsty arse-kicking delivery system.
The book is probably more correctly considered an alternate history (or even a secret history) rather than specifically steampunk. There's only a cursory mention of zeppelins, for fuck's sake, so its credentials are already suspect. However, what we do get instead of a clockwork potboiler is a meditation on the responsibilities of science, and of inventors. What would you do if you alone knew the secret of how to create a world-fracturing weapon so advanced that teams of the bright and beautiful (including Florence Nightingale, at one point) can't fathom its effects?
This approach - long on consideration and short on clanking butlers - has met with a bit of distaste in other reviewers, who presumably want some more sci-fi with their sci-fi and crumpets. But I enjoyed it - it was a mild, subtle thing, more about the evocation of time and place than about stirring the pot too wildly. It's more than competent, and successfully humanises Queen Victoria. (Which, upon reflection, I probably knew from the title.)
Is it great? Nope. But then, a lot of steampunk isn't, either. It's a fairly charming tale which is worth a look if you're into alternate history and thoughtful, presumably mustachioed men who may exist just like this in some other timeline. Give it a whirl.
Turns out my cash and my hopes weren't misplaced. For a couple of dollars, I read something which suggested atomic weaponry was developed in the 1850s, and tracked the life of its inventor as he attempted to dodge government and military obligation in an effort to make such destructiveness a sober warning rather than bloodthirsty arse-kicking delivery system.
The book is probably more correctly considered an alternate history (or even a secret history) rather than specifically steampunk. There's only a cursory mention of zeppelins, for fuck's sake, so its credentials are already suspect. However, what we do get instead of a clockwork potboiler is a meditation on the responsibilities of science, and of inventors. What would you do if you alone knew the secret of how to create a world-fracturing weapon so advanced that teams of the bright and beautiful (including Florence Nightingale, at one point) can't fathom its effects?
This approach - long on consideration and short on clanking butlers - has met with a bit of distaste in other reviewers, who presumably want some more sci-fi with their sci-fi and crumpets. But I enjoyed it - it was a mild, subtle thing, more about the evocation of time and place than about stirring the pot too wildly. It's more than competent, and successfully humanises Queen Victoria. (Which, upon reflection, I probably knew from the title.)
Is it great? Nope. But then, a lot of steampunk isn't, either. It's a fairly charming tale which is worth a look if you're into alternate history and thoughtful, presumably mustachioed men who may exist just like this in some other timeline. Give it a whirl.
November 30, 2014
I have been fascinated by this title ever since seeing it decades ago in a friend’s Book of SF Lists. Before finally deciding to purchase it online, I had never encountered the title since, either in used book stores, or even seeing it referred to in any other work about science fiction, even on lists of alternate history novels.
This is SF without the influence of pulp magazines or the stylistic daring of the then emerging New Wave, a book as staid and respectable as the Queen of its title. The novel purports to be the memoirs of Victorian scientist Franklin Huxtable, the inventor of the atomic bomb roughly 100 years before its actual development. Clark was the author of a nonfiction book about the development of the bomb and became fascinated with the idea that its basic elements were known in Victorian times and that someone with the proper insight could have conceived and built the weapon long before the Manhattan Project. Despite a battlefield climax reminiscent of other adventure novels set during the British Empire, this is a novel of ideas more than action. Clark looks at how science is actually done and the types of observations and intuitions which would lead Huxtable to his discovery. Once the invention is made there are as many pages devoted to discussions of how the bomb could and should be used and the morality of its use as there are to Huxtable’s travels to various corners of the Empire with his invention. Clark puts into the mouths of his Victorian characters variations of actual arguments put forward by military and scientific experts and skeptics from the 1940s, all conscientiously footnoted.
As Huxtable meets various historic figures, the presentation occasionally reminded me of the Flashman novels, if one can imagine a Flashman who is sober, chaste, studious, and respectable in both his behavior and opinions. Huxtable’s manservant and assistant Dobbins, a man who both knows his station and knows a considerable amount outside his station, could be a potential Sam Weller, but his color is significantly subdued by being presented through the smoked glass of Huxtable’s narration. I don’t want to diminish the book on the basis of its rather bland narrator; Huxtable’s narration seems to me a successful piece of ventriloquism. His statements, ideas, and priorities are exactly what we would expect of someone of his position in the society of the time and I think that one of Clark’s points is that it would not take an extraordinary figure to make the discovery, just one who had the properly trained mind and the right experiences. The rather unobjectionable and unexceptional nature of the narrator may also be intended as a sort of neutral mask upon which the reader is encouraged to project his or her own personality, as the arguments for and against the device take on the nature of a dispute for Huxtable’s soul, and, by extension, the reader’s as well.
In a way this novel is its own artifact of alternate history: what if Science Fiction had become respectable literature rather than the gaudy, pulpy, disreputable genre it became? On the evidence of Queen Victoria’s Bomb, conservative in style, cautious in its leaps of imagination, I’m afraid that the form may not have had the energy to have lasted long enough to be discussed on the internet as a living and vital subject.
This is SF without the influence of pulp magazines or the stylistic daring of the then emerging New Wave, a book as staid and respectable as the Queen of its title. The novel purports to be the memoirs of Victorian scientist Franklin Huxtable, the inventor of the atomic bomb roughly 100 years before its actual development. Clark was the author of a nonfiction book about the development of the bomb and became fascinated with the idea that its basic elements were known in Victorian times and that someone with the proper insight could have conceived and built the weapon long before the Manhattan Project. Despite a battlefield climax reminiscent of other adventure novels set during the British Empire, this is a novel of ideas more than action. Clark looks at how science is actually done and the types of observations and intuitions which would lead Huxtable to his discovery. Once the invention is made there are as many pages devoted to discussions of how the bomb could and should be used and the morality of its use as there are to Huxtable’s travels to various corners of the Empire with his invention. Clark puts into the mouths of his Victorian characters variations of actual arguments put forward by military and scientific experts and skeptics from the 1940s, all conscientiously footnoted.
As Huxtable meets various historic figures, the presentation occasionally reminded me of the Flashman novels, if one can imagine a Flashman who is sober, chaste, studious, and respectable in both his behavior and opinions. Huxtable’s manservant and assistant Dobbins, a man who both knows his station and knows a considerable amount outside his station, could be a potential Sam Weller, but his color is significantly subdued by being presented through the smoked glass of Huxtable’s narration. I don’t want to diminish the book on the basis of its rather bland narrator; Huxtable’s narration seems to me a successful piece of ventriloquism. His statements, ideas, and priorities are exactly what we would expect of someone of his position in the society of the time and I think that one of Clark’s points is that it would not take an extraordinary figure to make the discovery, just one who had the properly trained mind and the right experiences. The rather unobjectionable and unexceptional nature of the narrator may also be intended as a sort of neutral mask upon which the reader is encouraged to project his or her own personality, as the arguments for and against the device take on the nature of a dispute for Huxtable’s soul, and, by extension, the reader’s as well.
In a way this novel is its own artifact of alternate history: what if Science Fiction had become respectable literature rather than the gaudy, pulpy, disreputable genre it became? On the evidence of Queen Victoria’s Bomb, conservative in style, cautious in its leaps of imagination, I’m afraid that the form may not have had the energy to have lasted long enough to be discussed on the internet as a living and vital subject.
September 11, 2013
An interesting and somewhat enjoyable alternative history.
It blends the story with historical events well (with footnotes to references at some points!). The book as a whole, though, lacks deep characters. Sometimes words taken from speeches and memoirs (footnoted again) and placed in the mouths of the real historical figures feel rather forced. The moral grappling also feels quite shallow - though maybe that's because the concept of atomic weaponry is so ingrained in our culture now that the ideas it does present don't feel new as they did at the time of writing.
I did enjoy reading it, but I feel it's main value may be as an insight into the time it was written - I don't think it would be getting great reviews if it were new new.
It blends the story with historical events well (with footnotes to references at some points!). The book as a whole, though, lacks deep characters. Sometimes words taken from speeches and memoirs (footnoted again) and placed in the mouths of the real historical figures feel rather forced. The moral grappling also feels quite shallow - though maybe that's because the concept of atomic weaponry is so ingrained in our culture now that the ideas it does present don't feel new as they did at the time of writing.
I did enjoy reading it, but I feel it's main value may be as an insight into the time it was written - I don't think it would be getting great reviews if it were new new.
July 16, 2013
I picked this book up because it's considered early steampunk and I liked the premise. I did enjoy it, particularly when historical figures were thrown in, and it exposed me to a lot of archaic English. But I think more could have been done with it. It lacked character development and relationships between characters that would have made you care about them. It was often a dry narrative, attempting to be a "factual" reporting.
Want to Read
September 10, 2010steampunkish before anyone was doing it..
*note to self. Copy from A.= Different dust jacket.(scan later)1967 ed by Johnathan Cape Publishers. Hardcover.
*note to self. Copy from A.= Different dust jacket.(scan later)1967 ed by Johnathan Cape Publishers. Hardcover.
August 26, 2016
Really 1.5 stars.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews