Customer Reviews

The Difference Engine (Advance Reading Copy)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

An enviable array of critical raves lines the first few pages of The Difference Engine, including this one from director Ridley Scott: "A visionary steam-powered heavy metal fantasy! Gibson and Sterling create a high Victorian virtual reality of extraordinary richness and detail."

In this novel Gibson teams up with Bruce Sterling, a brilliant sci-fi writer himself, to provide an amazing picture of Victorian England. Both writers are notable for their attention to detail, and their combined effort teems with thousands of minutiae from the period, not to mention large themes based on the Victorian preoccupation with such things as science, technology, exploration, and steam.

The novel belongs to a particular genre of science fiction called alternate history, where the writer answers the question, if such-and-such had happened (or never happened), what would the world be like now? The Difference Engine tries to imagine what the world would be like if the computer had been invented 100 years earlier. It is set in England in 1855. Sci-fi pundits have dubbed the novel "steampunk" because those who control the steam-driven computers control society.

The structure of the novel falls into three discreet, self-contained units all concerned with a case full of rare and valuable computer cards. In the first part, Sybil Gerard, a fallen woman, inherits the cards from her boyfriend, who was murdered for them. In the long middle section Edward "Leviathan" Mallory, a scientist famous for his discovery of the Brontosaurus, takes charge of them next. And in the conclusion Lawrence Oliphant, a gentleman detective with advanced syphillis, finally solves the mystery of their whereabouts.

Alternate history writers love to recast famous figures in altered roles. The writers have done just that with, for example, three of England's greatest romantic poets. Lord Byron has become prime minister, and Disraeli (the prime minister of the history books) a hack writer. Shelly is some sort of anarchist rebel and Keats has become a kinotropist, a specialist in a sort of gas-illuminated light show of computer designed images. Keats, also, seems to be the only one who knows what the cards signify.

Just to show how far the villains will go to get the computer cards and the power the cards represent, they devise a way to break down all of London's eco system as the city grinds to a halt and falls prey to looters, many of whom join the villains' rebellion: "The gloom of the day was truly extraordinary. It was scarcely noon, but the dome of St. Paul's was shrouded in filthy mist. Great rolling wads of oily fog hid the spires and the giant bannered adverts of Ludgate Hill. Fleet Street was a high-piled clattering chaos, all whip-cracking, steam-snorting, shouting. The women on the pavements crouched under soot-stained parasols and walked half-bent, and men and women alike clutched kerchiefs to their eyes and noses. Men and boys lugged family carpetbags and rubber-handled traveling-cases, their cheery straw boaters already speckled with detritus. A crowded excursion train chugged past on the spidery elevated track of the London, Chatham & Dover, its cloud of cindered exhaust hanging in the sullen air like a banner of filth."

Despite the raves from critics and all the wonderful detail, the novel sometimes dragged for me. As a lover of Victorian England (my graduate specialization), I perhaps should have liked it more, but I found the villain and some of the main characters, including Mallory, uninteresting. I wasn't convinced that things were much different in Gibson's and Sterlings's reality even with the addition of the computer, a noisy, mechanical, affair. The characters might as well have been fighting over an Egyptian mummy for all the difference the computer made. And the long center section with the inevitable Gibson pitched battle (I'm betting my money that Gibson wrote the middle part and Sterling wrote the bookends) didn't thrill me.

Lawrence Oliphant's genteel manners and shrewd detective work make him a fascinating character. The novel might have been more satisfying if he'd been the hero all the way through instead of just the last 100 pages. The experimental conclusion with various bits and pieces from personal journals, letters, advertisements, recordings, and popular songs attempts to tie everything up. But one never has the sense that the cards nor the computers were as important as the writers want us to believe. Did the cards really contain just a mathematical gambling system, as everyone seemed to think, or were they something more ominous and earthshaking? Keats comments that they were far more important than anyone would ever know but doesn't say why. They simply are never satisfactorily explained.

I'm puzzled by the complaint (made by several reviewers below) that the plot threads are never tied up (yes they are, in the final third of the novel) and that we never find out what the mysterious punch cards do (we most certainly do -- see pp. 387, 421, and 429, where we're told EXACTLY what their function is).

This is admittedly a novel that has to be read carefully; one can't just slurp it down like jello without doing any work. It's a serious novel, thank goodness -- not "light entertainment."

I'm also puzzled that nobody seems to have noticed what a highly *political* novel this is. This book is much more about political and cultural ideology than it is about alternative-history technology.

It was such a great premise for a book-- what if the Babbage had realized his analytical engine and successfully created computer much earlier in our history? It was also encouraging that two of my favorite writers were involved. Unfortunately, _The Difference Engine_ never really delivers on its astounding amount of promise and the resulting book, while readable, does not hold together terribly well.

Three sets of very different lives intersect when they all come in contact with a mysterious box of punch cards. Mix in an alternative history, lady Ada Babbage (with echos of Moorcock's Gloriana), and a staggering richness of detail and you have the book itself.

Unfortunately, it often felt like a huge amount of talent in search of a plot. The detailing was perfect, the characters were great, but the story just never came together.

Too bad.

I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but I think I have to reveal a little to counter the bad reviews. I hate to think that people who might enjoy this book as much as I did will miss out on it because of what they've read here. If you don't like SF books that aren't tightly character and plot-driven, this one isn't for you. But the book does have a plot, and I think those who say that it's muddled, or ends in mid-story just didn't get it. This book is about the genesis of the first AI in an alternate history, in which the historical leaps in computer technology take place in a post-Napoleonic Britain where meritocracy and rationalism have triumphed over aristocracy.

The authors were not trying to develop this idea by focusing on plot and character and indeed the AI itself is largely absent. The focus is instead on the alternate society from which the AI comes. The authors introduce a number of equally weighted plot elements, which are indeed low-key and inconclusive. But two of these meandering elements of the plot are, by the end, shown to be significant. One involves the invention of a computer system so complex that an unavoidable randomness is introduced into its calculation of data. The other involves the rationalist government's internal security technocrats, who, in the style of their twentieth century counterparts in actual history, base their philosophy on mass information - by trying to construct a database of the personal details of all their citizens.

Far from finishing in mid-story, the book reaches its natural conclusion when these two plot elements are brought together. That last chapter, with the "shadowy character", shows us a point in the future in which the result of their union finally comes to fruition. What happened in between the end of the story and this future point we can easily extrapolate, and is surplus to the authors' requirements. Reading that last chapter gave me chills and I thought about it for days afterwards.

The plot of this book is as devastating and brilliant as any SF book I've ever read, but the authors slip it in under the radar and hide it behind their wonderful evocation of their alternate society, which would make worthwhile reading just by itself. If you don't like stories that aren't tightly focused, don't read it. But otherwise, take my five-star review seriously and try to get hold of this one.

...at the 2.7 average review this book received! So shocked, I first thought that maybe the rating had something to do with this (Spectra) edition! Or that I clicked the wrong link! I checked that I clicked the right link. I did.

Well, I liked this book a lot. I love books that make me think, or encourage me to learn more about things I may not be familiar with - this book had both qualities.

This is the process I used to really get into this book:

1. Read it first to get the story.
2. Looked up people, terms, events I was not familiar with. (I learned a lot! - Google "The Difference Dictionary" for a great one-stop resource that not only summarizes aspects of the real people, places and events of the book, but provides links for more in-depth study.)
3. Read the book again with my new-found knowledge that allowed me to appreciate the book more thoroughly.

I think "The Difference Engine" is a wonderful re-imagining of the people and places of Victorian-Era London. I feel that Mallory was the most well-developed character and I read his section (during my first reading) as fast as I could to find out what happened to him. I was literally reading "The Difference Engine" non-stop during a weekend.

Reading through slowly a second time, I noticed subtle things I missed the first time. Like how certain people who seemed to disappear, were in fact acting behind the scenes (Sybil, for instance). I was still left with questions at the end of my reading to ponder, and to me, books that leave me pondering are the best!

I do wonder about the purpose of the long sex scene, but I think that while Mallory was... occupied, and Fraser was recovering, and the police were dealing with the factories, these things together allowed London to become total chaos. Maybe Mallory needed a break from his grim reality...

I would recommend this book to lovers of all things Victorian, those who enjoy mysteries and intrigue, and to those who don't mind endings that can be a bit ambiguous, leaving the reader thinking.

I do not recommend this book to those who would dislike researching people, places, and events portrayed in a novel, or who need every loose end tied up in an obvious fashion.

The Difference Engine reflects the creative synergy of two great cyberpunk pioneers, Gibson and Sterling. It is a difficult and complex novel, based on the premise that Charles Babbage's eponymous mechanical computer is actually developed for practical use using steam power in the Victorian Age, ushering in the Information Revolution a century early. The authors manage to convincingly evoke a Victorian otherworld that is both hauntingly familiar and yet dramatically different from our own past. England is ruled by technocrats and scientists (known as savants) who battle Luddite terrorists; the United States are far from united, rent between the Republic of Texas, the Confederate South, and the Marxist Manhattan Commune. Gibson and Sterling utilize this fascinating background to great advantage, using a colorful cast of characters (including famous historic figures like Sam Houston and Lord Byron in roles a little different from those in our own history books) to explore such weighty themes as evolution and natural selection; technology, surveillance and social control; AI; and the science of chaos and complexity.

I'm sure I did not fully grasp all the implications or understand all the intricate plotlines in this rare treasure; it will definitely repay rereading. But I'm sure that thoughtful fans of Gibson and Sterling--especially those with some knowledge of 19th century England--will enjoy this book as much as I did. It may well be regarded as an SF masterpiece with time. On the other hand, readers who require straightforward, linear plotting and who find ambiguity irritating will certainly do best to skip this novel.

Dear Sirs,

It has come to my attention that the Extraordinary Novel by Messrs. Gibson and Sterling has undergone callous Derision in the pages of this publication.

Clearly, this is a novel intended only for the Discerning Reader. Its length is no detriment to such a reader, for this novel is a Masterpiece of the genre. It is an admixture of American Noir, Victorian Detective Fiction, and Steampunk speculation.

This Learned Commentary on our vaunted Information Age develops in a fashion that slowly peels away the Onion-like layers of control that associate with the Manipulation of Data. Perhaps _Buck Rogers_ would be more to the taste of those responsible for the ill treatment of this work.

Forward Britannia!

I don't have a lot of time for this right now, but I was shocked and dismayed to read so many negative reviews of this book, and I feel a need to counter them.

The book does ask a lot of its readers. You have to pay attention, and you have to think. It helps to know something about Victorian England, Charles Babbage and The Royal Society, complex systems, and AI, etc. If you don't know anything about these topics but read the book anyway, you might end up doing some research, as I did, and reading the book again. In fact, I have taught this novel several times in college Literature courses, where rooms full of smart, attentive students have only scratched its surface. In any case, this is a complex novel and bears multiple readings.

SPOILERS:
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However, the book is not so much "about" any of those topics as it is a performance of emergence, where the reader witnesses a birth. In other words, the book is not about characters or plots or topics. It is not a traditional novel in that sense. This novel is a beautifully rendered multidimensional image of a set of emergent relationships, and if you are prepared for it with your careful, thoughtful reading, the moment at which you realize that is stunning.

All of that is to say: if you are an attentive, intellectually curious, thoughtful reader, this book will blow you away. If you are a student, fan, or scholar of any of the above topics, you will appreciate its complexity and vision. If you are a lazy-ass reader who wants an easily digestible, predictable novel with predictable characters and plots, it will only frustrate you.

Like most people, apon completing the book I thought "How can you finish the book with the plot unresolved?". Apon reflection I have decided that the "plot" was just a mechanism for this sublime tour of alternate England. Powerful images dominate this book. The detail put into the characters and their surrounds had me unable to put the book down. After a couple of days I found that even my dreams were being influenced by the images contrived in the novel. I also found some parrallels with modern life. Is it possible that the society in this book was unable to cope with the technology that it had created?

As several previous reviewers have commented extensively on the plot(or lack thereof), I will not go into detail on that. As a serious fan of both Gibson and to a lesser extent Stirling, when I heard about the colloboration on this novel I had very high hopes. Initially I was very dissappointed, the novel really seemed to drag, and the plot seemed to disappear in overwhelming detail, then I reached the far too brief section ending the first iteration and was just blown away by the sudden feeling that all of this actually had meaning. The less narrative sections at the ends of each iteration gave me enough encouragement to finish the novel, particularly the rather enjoyable one at the end after the nominal storyline is concluded. After I finished it I found myself suffieciently fascinated by the world and to a lesser extent the characters that I immediately reread the book and came away feeling satisfied that it had been worth the effort.

This is not a masterpiece when viewed purely as a novel but its real value lies in an exceptionally precise and detailed evocation of a Victorian Era that could have been, and the subtle parallels to our own situation. In the effects of the computer revolution on the Victorian Era we see reflections in a dark mirror of the effects on our own era, specific applicability is not certain but I liked the way that the perspectives from later times scattered throughout the book, particularly in the final section give hints of ways that our own society might go.

In a final note some of the historical variations, Keats as a Hacker, Byron as the Prime Minister and others too numerous to mention are quite entertaining and sometimes enlightening, I particularly liked the way that it is strongly suggested that ones career is more a matter of chance than commonly thought.

If you are willing to spend the time this novel is well worth reading, but be warned that it is often slow moving. It is emphatically not a page burner and is best appreciated with time to ponder its subtleties.