An unwitting participant in the mission to restore Excalibur to its rightful owner who comes awake only when England needs to be rescued, the narrator of this dark farcical romp is enlisted by Merlin to try to save the world. Written as a sequel to H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, K.W. Jeter created a science fiction tale employing alternate history and clockwork devices in a Victorian London setting that inspired dozens of writers to follow suit in a genre which Jeter aptly captured in the term "steampunk".