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.