The Difference Engine

Around the time this book was published and the term “Steam Punk” was being bandied about, and people were modding computers with Victorian facades, a university friend of mine mentioned the words to me, “The difference engine”. I never read the book but I used the term freely over the years to express the À rebours aesthetic taking place with new technologies. The concept overall, quite interesting, albeit twenty years later, I actually got round to reading the book. I couldn’t have felt flatter. It felt like Gibson and Sterling had over-researched the era and decided to throw in as much of this research as possible in order to either authenticate the world within or just let the reader know they had done their homework.

Consistency was lost through-out. Even some of the main character dialogue shifted from cockney brogue to received pronunciation without seemingly intending to do so, as if the two authors were getting muddled. At points, as if trapped in a corner, the authors would spring a further development to keep the plot moving, although this at times felt jarring and inconclusive.

There were parts in which I can honestly say I was deeply drawn into the narrative (author having a good day) and other parts of which the diplomatic intrigue dragged on unbearably (author needing to meet a word-count deadline). In some respects, the underlying story arc was no more than a Western set in a speculative alternative history and then moments would arrive where I was expecting Sherlock Holmes to crop up. The ending literally a Spaghetti Western shootout.

All the main characters seemed to have an almost superhuman endurance, especially Mallory, who at times, I wondered if he ever rested. The catastrophe was well deployed but the underlying alternative technology was almost an aside to the alternative political and scientific background.

The addendum highly unnecessary and almost seemed like the authors wanted to include their backstory notes to fill any holes the narrative might have had throughout. Overall, an innovative concept poorly executed with decent writing peppered by moments of superb writing. For me it is not ranked as a remarkably influential book by nature of its story as a whole, but you will find parts that, if had been condensed into a shorter book, and certain concepts teased out to weave those parts together, would have made a far greater impact ... at least to me.

I have lemmed this book twice. I have now finished it. The story is way too disjointed and there seemed to be no satisfactory ending to the story. Yes, all issues with all the main characters are resolved. The MacGuffan of the cards, and they are, is revealed. But there was so much going on that the characters had a thin thread between each other as to be bored when one thread took over and resolution of the other thread was never properly reached. I guess in the tradition of the Great Analytical Engines the book changed gears but there was never a reason to care about what was happening and how it happened.

To put simply I was bored throughout the entire book. I hope this is not representative of Steampunk genre but it was barely representative to the Cyberpunk genre. I have read both authors before and the entire story just seemed long overly descriptive paragraphs signifying not much is truly happening and when it does it too is drawn out until the action is so muted that the reader is bored. I gave this book an extra star just because I know William Gibson can do better and has done better.