The promise of a story about time travel, victorian times, HG Wells, and automatons is certainly intriguing but Palma fell short in his execution. This book is actually 3 books in one. It starts out very slow and it took every thing in me to keep reading past the first chapter or 2. The stories meander and are convoluted (lots of gratuitous information that I, for one, could have done without!) ... and highly unbelievable and predictable! His use of an "omniscience" narrator was disruptive and annoying ... it may have worked if the narrator had become a character in the story later on to explain his omniscience (maybe). This book is in desperate need of an editor.