Envoy Extraordinary is a 1956 novella

Novella

A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...

 by William Golding

William Golding

Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, best known for his novel Lord of the Flies...

, published along with Clonk Clonk

Clonk Clonk

Clonk Clonk is one of three novellas by William Golding, published together under the title The Scorpion God in 1971.Clonk Clonk is set in pre-historic Africa - some 70,000 years ago. A tribe lives under the heat of the African Sun. The men and women live largely separate lives, with the women...

 and The Scorpion God

The Scorpion God

The Scorpion God is a novella by William Golding, published in a collection of the same name, along with Clonk Clonk and Envoy Extraordinary ....

 in the collection The Scorpion God

The Scorpion God

The Scorpion God is a novella by William Golding, published in a collection of the same name, along with Clonk Clonk and Envoy Extraordinary ....

.

Envoy Extraordinary is set in Ancient Rome, in and around the Emperor's court. The aged Emperor lives with his favourite grandson, the seventeen year old Mamillius. The true heir, Posthumus, is governor of a distant province, but is jealous of Mamillius.

The normal Roman world is shattered by the arrival of the inventor, Phanocles. He brings many inventions that are far ahead of his time, including the pressure cooker, steam engines and explosives.