Loading...
16th out of 311 books
—
1,368 voters
My rating:
add to my books
The Difference Engine
1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. And three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with history - and the future: Sybil Gerard - dishonored woman and daughter of a Luddite agitator;...more
Mass Market Paperback, 429 pages
Published
July 27th 2011
by Spectra
(first published 1990)
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
9,164)
STEAMPUNK SALAD
3 (5-ounce) cans solid Victorian Era packed in water
1/2 cup minced Bruce Sterling
1/2 cup minced William Gibson
1/4 cup Technological Speculation
1 hard-boiled Spy Thriller, chopped in large pieces
1 soft-boiled Detective Tale, finely minced
3 Major Characters, lukewarm
1 Mysterious Box of Computer Punch Cards
Salt and Pepper
1/2 teaspoon Ambition
STEP 1
Place Victorian Era in fine-mesh strainer and press dr...more
3 (5-ounce) cans solid Victorian Era packed in water
1/2 cup minced Bruce Sterling
1/2 cup minced William Gibson
1/4 cup Technological Speculation
1 hard-boiled Spy Thriller, chopped in large pieces
1 soft-boiled Detective Tale, finely minced
3 Major Characters, lukewarm
1 Mysterious Box of Computer Punch Cards
Salt and Pepper
1/2 teaspoon Ambition
STEP 1
Place Victorian Era in fine-mesh strainer and press dr...more
view all 20 comments
Eli
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people looking for an entry point into steampunk
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Ach, I wish I could recommend this book more highly, but I was very disappointed in it.
Perhaps my expectations were too high, given how much I loved Gibson's "Neuromancer." However, "The Difference Engine" was over-long. The plot threaded together slowly. The character development of central characters was fragmentary and tended toward the superficial. The writing of the action scenes was unbelievably bad - the reader could barely piece together what was happening...more
Perhaps my expectations were too high, given how much I loved Gibson's "Neuromancer." However, "The Difference Engine" was over-long. The plot threaded together slowly. The character development of central characters was fragmentary and tended toward the superficial. The writing of the action scenes was unbelievably bad - the reader could barely piece together what was happening...more
Alright, so it was a bit of a jolt to my system, as I haven't read anything set before 1900 in quite some time (I KNOW! HORRIBLE!), which is a shame. Once I got over the culture (which was rather disparaging to a variety of people who were not white men) as you have to do with things set in history, I rather enjoyed most of this book. The book is divided between three different main character perspectives, the largest section being given to Dr. Edward Mallory, who is a paleontologist or as they ...more
Tracey
rated it
Recommends it for:
to fans of the Victorian era as it might have been; with an interest in computing as well
An alt-history/steampunk tale, we follow three characters from mid 1850's London: Sybil Gerard, a fallen woman with higher aspirations; Edward Mallory, a paleontologist unwillingly embroiled in a political plot; and Laurence Oliphant, a high-class detective. Their common thread is a mysterious box of computer punch cards. None of them is quite sure what program it holds, only that people are willing to kill and die for it.
There are many mentions of contemporary personages - Lady Ada...more
There are many mentions of contemporary personages - Lady Ada...more
Mina Villalobos
rated it
Recommends it for:
people who like history, technology, math and good story telling
Shelves:
steam-punk
This book is pure brilliance. As all the other Gibson books I have read, the ending kind of.. dissolves into mist, leaving you with questions and giving you a lot of room to imagine and pursue ideas -this being a very positive thing, actually. I think Sterling's style gave Gibson a grounding tug, so the whole ending chapter is about closure, something Gibson doesn't always work well with, but this one made me go back and forth to refresh character, and I had wikipedia open to read the biographie...more
Sometimes it *really* pays to re-read a book.
I wasn't very impressed when I first read this book. My favorite character at the time vanished with about forty pages left, and I didn't find the end compelling.
I can't remember when I first read the book, but it was years ago. Now that I'm older and have both read more and experienced more, I feel I got a lot more out of the book. I actually found Laurence Oliphant's struggle with his beliefs more compelling than Edward Mallo...more
I wasn't very impressed when I first read this book. My favorite character at the time vanished with about forty pages left, and I didn't find the end compelling.
I can't remember when I first read the book, but it was years ago. Now that I'm older and have both read more and experienced more, I feel I got a lot more out of the book. I actually found Laurence Oliphant's struggle with his beliefs more compelling than Edward Mallo...more
In their first major collaboration, sf heavyweights Gibson and Sterling spin an exquisitely clever filigree of Victorian alternate history, sparkling densely with ideas, moored by a challenging subtext of chaos theory and the lessons of recent paleontology. In London of 1855, Lord Babbage's steam-driven Engines (mechanical computers roughly comparable to Univac) have transformed the world, blueprints thanks to Victorian paradigms of science and order. England's hereditary lords have been replace...more
This was a total disappointment. I was hyped to read some "steampunk" after jumping back on thee comics and sf trains over the last year plus. The word on the web was don't buy this, don't read it, not worth it. Don't get pumped about reading a collab by Sterling and Gibson. I ignored the shouts...and shoudn't have. I agree with what I read in online reviews and blogs: steampunk is a good concept for art, comic books or even cinema, but it doesn't work in novel form, especially n...more
Charles Babbage was one of those geniuses whose work wasn't sufficiently appreciated at the time. Many people have wondered what would have happened if he had been able to complete a working difference engine (essentially an advanced calculator) and then construct a working analytical engine (essentially a programmable general-purpose computer) from the designs he had developed. In this novel, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling collaborated to answer that what-if question. The resulting story is ...more
The Difference Engine is better read as Great Big Idea SF than as an exemplar of the genre it gave rise to, steampunk. Rather a grim alternate history of a proto-totalitarian Britain run by a government of science and industry and police steam computing, it couldn't be farther from the romanticism of the later genre.
It's very Gibson and Sterling though, painfully prescient in its depiction of the early days of the Panopticon, fiercely intelligent, tamping the worse excesses of both aut...more
It's very Gibson and Sterling though, painfully prescient in its depiction of the early days of the Panopticon, fiercely intelligent, tamping the worse excesses of both aut...more
"Just one little thing" is a recurring theme in Alternate History and Speculative Fiction and the nugget of The Difference Engine is "what if Charles Babbage was able to get his calculating engines to run". Historically, limitations to precision machining prevented the very fine parts required for his machines from being created which some say delayed the computational revolution by a century.
Sure.
The book itself moves back and forth between a milquet...more
Sure.
The book itself moves back and forth between a milquet...more
This collaborative effort from William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (the only to date) is a prime example of the ‘Steampunk’ genre and a bold imaginative ‘alternate history’ novel.
It is set in London in 1855 where the computer age has arrived a century ahead of time with the great steam-driven (Charles) Babbage Engines powering the Industrial Revolution. Thanks to this huge leap in technology Great Britain with her calculating-cannons, steam dreadnoughts, machine-guns and information tech...more
It is set in London in 1855 where the computer age has arrived a century ahead of time with the great steam-driven (Charles) Babbage Engines powering the Industrial Revolution. Thanks to this huge leap in technology Great Britain with her calculating-cannons, steam dreadnoughts, machine-guns and information tech...more
Bueno, al menos escribo sobre los libros y no he dejado de leer. La novela parte de la ucronía que hubiese supuesto que Charles Babbage [1 y 2], hubiese conseguido hacer funcionar su proyecto de máquina diferencial [3]. Partiendo de ese hecho, tenemos una novela de Steampunk en la que Inglaterra y Francia habrían comenzado a "informatizar" la gestión de sus imperios coloniales y mejorar así su control a nivel mundial.
Todo esto parece muy interesante, pero luego la novela se convie...more
Todo esto parece muy interesante, pero luego la novela se convie...more
Jake Mcconnell
added it
The archetypical novel in the Steampunk genre, The Difference Engine explores an alternate history where Charles Babbage creates a precursor to the modern computer powered by steam and clockwork gears (in our own reality, Babbage works on such a device, but never gets a completely functional version). This Difference Engine changes the course of history, and becomes widespread throughout all facets of life in Victorian England, allowing Great Britain to remain the main world power at the time....more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
"The Difference Engine" ("DGE") was a real surprise after reading previously published books by both authors. (I had probably only read "Islands in the Net" and the "Mirrorshades" collection by Mr. Sterling at this point.) I can't even tell you (and won't cheat and look up) if this book launched the "steampunk" genre (I suspect not), but even if it wasn't the first, this is a book to judge others by.
Forget it's genre or even sub-genre:...more
Forget it's genre or even sub-genre:...more
"The Difference Engine" (A Máquina Diferencial), de 1990, foi a primeira grande obra da ficção steampunk. Neste romance, Gibson e Sterling imaginaram uma história alternativa do século XIX.
O pivô da mudança é Charles Babbage, matemático e inventor que, na vida real, a partir dos anos 1820 tentou construir a verdadeira “máquina diferencial”, uma complexa calculadora mecânica, programável como um computador e dotada de impressora. Babbage nunca conseguiu os recursos de que pre...more
O pivô da mudança é Charles Babbage, matemático e inventor que, na vida real, a partir dos anos 1820 tentou construir a verdadeira “máquina diferencial”, uma complexa calculadora mecânica, programável como um computador e dotada de impressora. Babbage nunca conseguiu os recursos de que pre...more
William Gibson was a young turk in Science Fiction in the 1980s when Neuromancer helped establish cyperpunk as a leading SF genre. My ex loved this book. It was cyber-literate, speculative and very smart. I read it, but it didn't stick with me. Fast forward 25 years. Gibson and Sterling's Difference Engine attracted my attention because it's counterfactual history. What would have happened if Charles Babbage's mechanical computer had been successful and the cyber-revolution happened in the ...more
This is one of the first Steampunk books to show up, once the term 'steampunk' was in our literary consciences.
William Gibson and Bruce Sterling are two literary powerhouses, and their incredible skill shows in this masterful telling. Gibson is largely credited with being the father of 'cyberpunk'(it is worth noting that steampunk was initially a tongue-in-cheek reaction to cyberpunk), and Sterling himself helped to define both genres.
In the Difference Engine, Gibson and Sterling pos...more
William Gibson and Bruce Sterling are two literary powerhouses, and their incredible skill shows in this masterful telling. Gibson is largely credited with being the father of 'cyberpunk'(it is worth noting that steampunk was initially a tongue-in-cheek reaction to cyberpunk), and Sterling himself helped to define both genres.
In the Difference Engine, Gibson and Sterling pos...more
I happen to be a fan of both Gibson and Sterling, in most of their works. So, of course, I am a bit biased in this review...
That being said, The Difference Engine truly isn't "Steampunk" to me as much as a historical-fiction based on the past...with some fantastical elements thrown in. It's split into three points-of-view with one, secret box connecting them.
Sybil, a working woman who happens to get herself entangled with the "right" man to take her aw...more
That being said, The Difference Engine truly isn't "Steampunk" to me as much as a historical-fiction based on the past...with some fantastical elements thrown in. It's split into three points-of-view with one, secret box connecting them.
Sybil, a working woman who happens to get herself entangled with the "right" man to take her aw...more
I thought I’d love this book. I really did. I mean, it’s a classic of steampunk literature and alternate history! But, I didn’t.
Except for a pretty good beginning, the plot moves slowly and a bit disjointedly. There are a couple of exceptions, but most of the characters are unengaging and uninteresting. The conclusion is so vague that I had to read it twice before I figured out what the 400+ pages had been leading to.
There are exciting bits, and I enjoyed the use of his...more
Except for a pretty good beginning, the plot moves slowly and a bit disjointedly. There are a couple of exceptions, but most of the characters are unengaging and uninteresting. The conclusion is so vague that I had to read it twice before I figured out what the 400+ pages had been leading to.
There are exciting bits, and I enjoyed the use of his...more
First things first: I found this book in the Young Adult section of my local library. Not that teens are not capable of appreciating this sort of book, but it's NOT a YA book. Lot's of drinking, sex, prostitution, and complex historical matter. I'd like to have a chat with the library about reclassifying it. We'll see.
The novel was a rich evocation of a Victorian England pushed too soon into industrialism, rife with social uprisings, class conflict, and intrigue. It's part steampunk sc...more
The novel was a rich evocation of a Victorian England pushed too soon into industrialism, rife with social uprisings, class conflict, and intrigue. It's part steampunk sc...more
Remember that ER episode that was supposed to take place in real-time? Remember how there seemed to be an egregious number of wall clocks showing the time every couple of scenes to constantly remind you that the episode took place in real time? This is how The Difference Engine felt to me. The authors, known for their attention to detail, went way overboard with descriptions of clothing and era-specific minutiae seemingly only to remind the reader that this science-fiction story takes place t...more
Yuck yuck yuck. Bad action, bad dialogue, bad characters. The worst of all, though: the world was wonderfully designed, but the plot was so meaningless and boring. What a waste of a grand environment to set such a terrible story.
Some collaborations combine the strengths of all involved into something extraordinary. Others magnify the weaknesses. This is a fine example of the latter.
PS: the ending is the greatest WTF in modern history.
Some collaborations combine the strengths of all involved into something extraordinary. Others magnify the weaknesses. This is a fine example of the latter.
PS: the ending is the greatest WTF in modern history.
So, I didn't actually finish this book, but close enough. I had set it aside for so long that when I went back to it, I really didn't care how it ended. I am officially marking it read anyway. I enjoyed the beginnings of this book, but it just kept on going and going long after it should have quit... maybe there is some incredible surprise/ironic ending, but, like I said, I really could not muster enough energy to care if there was or not.
I’m a tough person to impress. I know this, I accept this, and sometimes I see it as a curse when others gain enjoyment from books, films and TV that I struggle to get along with. Gibson's style of writing is something I struggled with when reading Neuromancer. But I decided upon hearing good things and seeing The Difference Engine on several ‘must read’ steampunk listings to give it a go. What a mistake. Or maybe it was my issue, maybe I am just being difficult to please as usual. Though I doub...more
Acclaimed as the one of the important books of the steampunk genre, I found the book a entertaining read. It presented the standard tropes of science fiction and cyberpunk in a new way. I enjoyed and love the idea of gas light and gadgets.
Though the book was entertaining it seemed overly busy and incomplete. I don't know if this is done on purpose or the result of co-authoring. The story begins with the exchanging and focus of a mysterious box of Engine cards, but that eventually fades in...more
Though the book was entertaining it seemed overly busy and incomplete. I don't know if this is done on purpose or the result of co-authoring. The story begins with the exchanging and focus of a mysterious box of Engine cards, but that eventually fades in...more
William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, two major SciFi powerhouses, joined forces to produce The Difference Engine, a classic steampunk novel which was nominated for the 1990 British Science Fiction Award, the 1991 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award and Prix Aurora Award. I listened to Brilliance Audio’s version which was produced in 2010 and read by the always-wonderful Simon Vance.Charles Babbage's Difference Engine
The Difference Engine takes place ...more
The Difference Engine takes place ...more
To be blunt, I didn't think much of this book. The idea was imaginative for its time, but I thought it was horribly executed. The writing was opaque and awkward and filled with Victorian gobbledygook. The plot centered around a Macguffin and really never made much sense. I'm still not sure what was going on or why. I'm pretty sure the authors meant for there to be a message, but damned if I can tell what it was. The only parts of this book that were interesting dealt with the alternate hist...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
William Ford Gibson is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the father of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, having coined the term cyberspacein 1982 and popularizing it in his first novel, Neuromancer(1984), which has sold more than 6.5 millio...more
More about William Gibson...
William Ford Gibson is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the father of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, having coined the term cyberspacein 1982 and popularizing it in his first novel, Neuromancer(1984), which has sold more than 6.5 millio...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
