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 love alternative history, the Victorian Era, and steampunk. Indeed, this was the novel that was said to have launched steampunk as a genre (technological advanced Victorian aesthetic). But wow, this was a slog. I just could not get into it. I forced myself to read it hoping that it would pick up but in the end, I found the story a mess, the characters were uncomfortably wooden, the alternative history scenario implausible (Lord Byron, one of the Romantic era luminaries, becoming the leader of rapidly industrializing Britain?). There were good atmospheric moments - London being enveloped in a Great Stink caused from industrial pollution about one hundred years before the actual event in our timeline. But on the whole, I felt the authors were trying to be way too clever. It is possible that I simply didn't get what they were going for but for all of the talk around the novel, I expected much more. Maybe it should be seen as a proof of concept that could be taken up by better people.

I have heard one explanation for the woodenness of the characters is that the story is being narrated by a sentient supercomputer that gains consciousness at the end of the novel. But honestly, I didn't get that from the reading at all.