The Difference Engine
By William Gibson; Bruce Sterling (Contribution by)
(Spectra, Mass Market Paperback, 9780553294613, 448pp.)
Publication Date: January 1992
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Google eBook, Paperback, Compact Disc, Compact Disc, MP3 CD, MP3 CD
Categories: Science Fiction - General
 |     |
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—a fallen woman, politician’s tart, daughter of a Luddite agitator
Edward “Leviathan” Mallory—explorer and paleontologist
Laurence Oliphant—diplomat, mystic, and spy.
Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin and purpose. Cards someone wants badly enough to kill for….
Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine is the collaborative masterpiece by two of the most acclaimed science fiction authors writing today. Provocative, compelling, intensely imagined, it is a startling extension of Gibson’s and Sterling’s unique visions—and the beginning of movement we know today as “steampunk!”
“Breathtaking.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Smartly plotted, wonderfully crafted, and written with sly literary wit . . . spins marvelously and runs like a dream.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Splendid . . . highly imaginative.”—Chicago Tribune
“A ripping adventure yarn.”—Los Angeles Times
“[A] tour-de-force.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
 |
1Q84 Haruki Murakami Knopf |
 |
The Marriage Plot Jeffrey Eugenides Farrar, Straus, and Giroux |
 |
The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes Knopf |
 |
Death Comes to Pemberley PD James Knopf |
