Rating: 
Summary: Too many cooks spoil the soup
Review: I'm guessing the creation of the book went something like this:Gibson: Hey Bruce, want to write a book about steam powered computing? Sterling: Yeah, that sounds really interesting. Let's do lots of research and make it sound very authentic. A few months pass.... Gibson: Well, I've actually written the entire book now. How did your research go? Sterling: That's funny, I wrote the entire book too. Why don't we throw dice. If it's an even number, we'll put one of your chapters in, if it's an odd number we'll put one of mine in. Gibson: Sounds good.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth it for imagery alone
Review: The vividness with which the authors bring the Victorian computational machinery to life has stuck with me since the book first came out. I can still feel the clackers computing in their warehouses and feel the whoosh of pneumatic data. Tie-ins to such wonderful gizmos as the Jacquard loom provide an appropriate scientific backdrop. It's also short and easy to read, definite assets in my opinion; in this way, it contrasts with books by authors such as Vernor Vinge or even Greg Bear (the latters Blood Music excepted), who also introduce wonderful new societies situated among thought-inspiring technical gizmos. The pitting of London against Paris is more in the style of Agatha Christie than John Le Carre; surely an intentional move which gives the book a nice uncomplicated feel.
Rating:
Summary: Steampunk screams
Review: Indeed, this is the first of an unfortunately limited genre. Gibson and Sterling do a very entertaining and informative job of showing us the Victorian era's industrial mastery. The story, unfortunately, comes unraveled a bit. Nonetheless, the prose is engaging and the story premise quite brilliant. It focuses on the question of "what would have happened if computation had been successfully realized in a mechanical medium first?" This is an excellent premise for philosophical and historical speculation. It forces us to focus on the prejudices we tend to uphold regarding electronic computation. Those prejudices are nicely bent by this book. Moreover, it serves as a nice little history lesson about the true origins of computers and the very first programming language, which just happens to have actually been partially developed by Lady Ada Byron, Lord Byron's (the poet) wife and mathematical prodigy in her own right. I would love to read more works in this genre. Recently, there has been a renewal of interest surrounding the accomplishments of the Victorian era, and we should all keep in mind the spirit of possibility emodied by the Victorians. This is a good book to read in conjunction with Neal Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_, which I will also review.
Rating:
Summary: Not the best of either, but very thought provoking
Review: There's a convention in SF, honored perhaps more in the breach than in practice, that goes back to H.G. Wells: A good story _changes one thing_, and then extrapolates from there. That convention is most relevent in the "alternate history" sub-genre. As the "hardest" of the first-wave cyberpunks, an SF fan has to expect that Gibson and Sterling would honor that core convention. So the greatest mystery of this book, for most of its length, is to figure out what the devil that one change _is_. Since I believe I've done that -- and it's by no means obvious -- I won't spoil the fun. But I will say that it looks like much better SF once you do figure that out. The book has many flaws, most traceable to the dual-authorship. The writing is uneven -- neither Sterling nor Gibson are chameleons, and they don't do much here to approach a common style. Characterization is uneven because, though it's a strong suit for both writers, they handle it quite differently, and seem to have different visions of the characters. But even at its worst, this is a good novel; and it's one of the most finely realized and plausible alternative histories I've ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: Another bad book...
Review: ...in a string of REALLY bad books that I've recently purchased. First, I must give credit to the authors for their either outstanding research for 19th century characterization, or their amazingly brilliant imaginations. The concept of the book, too, is wonderful -- the computer age in the mid 1800's, a marvelous alternate history. That all said, the book stinks. I want to like Gibson and Sterling, I really do. As a software developer and ubergeek, I'm SUPPOSED to love them. Sadly, I just don't (not even NEUROMANCER), and this book doesn't help. It's weird, it's wordy, and it's annoying. Like a historical-romance-novel (crappy fiction in a historical setting), this science-fiction-mystery book merely licenses the idea of science fiction, finding an incredibly interesting setting for a so-so mystery plot -- and I hate a mystery story. I must agree with the prior reviewer; I kept reading the book, thinking, "this must get better SOMEWHERE." It didn't. The dialogue, with it's 19th century slang, became oddly irritating. I didn't care a whit for the characters, nor the box of cards that they were so interested in. The continuous stream of historical characters in non-historical roles was neat, but became distracting as the book went along. There was little else to do, after a couple hundred pages, but throw the book down. I returned the book to the store. I HOPE that I can eventually find at least ONE book by these authors that I can love.
Rating:
Summary: They really should have stuck to Cyberpunk
Review: One of the strengths in William Gibson writing is how he can take many different plot elements and weave them into one coherent whole. You don't even know until the end how these people connect to each other. Count Zero was like that and it was brilliant. This book is like that and it's horrible. Bruce Sterling's characterization strength doesn't help much. Pretty much the Gibson style fails here because they introduce you to a great character that is the daughter of a Luddite agitator. She's fallen but through the assistance of an admirer and former member of her father's group, she is trained to become an agent provaceteur (sic). Unfortunately 80 pages into the book she disappears only to be replaced by Mallory, a British nobleman and discoverer of a dinosaur. He's ever the Victorian gentleman and he's the dullest character I've endured in a long time. The rest of the book falls into a load of cliches based in the Alternative History genre. Disraeli is a romance novelist and Lord Byron is not only alive in 1855 but he's the Prime Minister. It's all pretty dull. Actually it's horribly dull. It's a mystery based on a bunch of cards that keep getting lost. When Sylvia Gerard finally shows up it turns out that she's been married for the rest of the book. She was only there to write a note to someone or something. Read both of these authors seperately but forget about this thing. It's really just a lot of nothing.
Rating:
Summary: Worst book I've read in a long time
Review: Ever read a book where you keep thinking, "this has got to get better..", so you keep reading chapter after chapter, and it never does? A couple nights ago, I started laughing outloud and threw the book onto the floor, about 20 pages from the end. My wife looked over at me, and to explain, I said that I had never stopped reading a book so close to the finish, but this was a good book to start the practice. I kept feeling like the the King in the movie Amadeus, who said to Mozart, after a great performance, ".... Umm, too many notes." There is a lot of impressive use of language in this book, so if you love language simply for the sound it makes, you'll be impressed by the amount of research the authors must have done to figure out how people spoke a hundred years ago. For me, it just got in the way of the story. I kept trying to figure out what was going on. Perhaps the whole thing comes together in those last unread 20 pages! Also, I kept thinking, 'this thing feels like it's been written by more than one author!", and then I'd remember that it was. I still consider Neuromancer one of the 5 best books I've ever read, along with Burning Chrome, and many others of Gibson's. Perhaps William Gibson finds the topic of those stories immature or boring now, but I for one wish he (or someone else) would come out with a whole series of them. Kind of the "Nancy Drew" series of Neuromancer.
Rating:
Summary: An odd mix...
Review: I can't help but feel my problem with the book may have more to do with the setting and genre than it does with the actual content. That is to say, the description is generally fairly impressive, and the research daunting. On the other hand, the claim that it is "part historical novel" is laughable. By such a claim, Austin Powers is "part historical movie, part comedy." A historical novel, in principle, should give you some accurate depiction of history, not just its cliches and excesses. Granted, Victorian England is not my field of expertise...but I feel like I can make some judgements simply based on being a thinking, literate person. For example, Mallory, a hero of the book, is assured to receive a "merit lordship" for his discovery of a brontosaurus skeleton, because it is the largest skeleton ever discovered. This makes such a joke of the whole principle of merit...it would roughly be like admitting someone into Harvard because he could write the biggest cursive in the world. I suppose that example is relatively minor, because it doesn't suffuse the whole of the book the way other problems do. The basic notion is that, having discovered computers in the 1800s, by 1850, England would have roughly equal technology to present day America (okay, I'm exagerrating slightly, but not so much.) For example: every citizen has lengthy files, which can be accessed by a citizenship number, via computer; by 1900, they have surveillance aircraft; the theory of fast moving, warmblooded dinosaurs is already discovered; the notion of streamlining vehicles is discovered; massive, steampowered (more on this later) mobile-fortresses are employed in battle; computerized movies are employed. And so on and so forth. The problem isn't simply that it's hard to believe computers would create so many breakthroughs. It's that all of these myriad things are being done with STEAM POWER. It's proposterous. Granted, the Stanley Steamer car had its day in the son, but the fact that punchcard, steam-operated computers ultimately develop self-conscious AI (riiiight) in the 1850s, is more than slightly embarrassing for a reader...I can't imagine how any editor took that seriously. The goofiness fills the language, too, in which streamlining is called "line streaming", Texans are called "Texians" and so on and so forth. The authors also feel justified in changing around various historical personages, such that famous Prime Ministers are hack writers and famous writers are movie makers. Sigh. The book is enjoyable at times, although its three sections seem disjointed. I feel like it may have come out better had one of the authors or the other written the whole thing. As it stands, it's hardly a tour-de-force.
Rating:
Summary: Dissapointing
Review: I usually enjoy Gibson, but this time I felt let down. I enjoyed segments of the book, but I never felt like it tied together. The importance of the cards was never displayed, even indirectly. I really struggled throught the ending and never felt like there was any point to the story.
Rating:
Summary: title is bad, book is good
Review: i'm sorry, but all i can say is that it only mentioned the difference engine once, and in the last few pages. It didn't even say what the difference engine was. Other than that, the book was well written and had a better than mediocre plot, but as a rule the title should have something to do with the book.
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