The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure)

The Return of the Discontinued Man sees Mark Hodder most expertly add another wrinkle to the series featuring Burton and Swinburne. I confess to being in awe of this author’s inventiveness. Just when you think he’s written himself into a corner, he finds a new way forward. In this case, the best scientific minds of the Victorian era follow in H G Wells’ footsteps and create their own time machine. They reason the only way to stop the deranged Edward Oxford from coming back and messing up their timeline, is to go forward and stop him from inventing his time machine.

Now that opening paragraph sums up the problem for new readers. You will be lost if you start reading this as a standalone. But if you have been following the saga from The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack it will all make perfect sense. This episode also gives you a chance to enjoy our redoubtable author speculating on all the things that might go wrong with our history as the Victorian travelers stop off at key points in our time en route to the final confrontation with Edward Oxford. So this is as much political satire as it is a time travel novel.