Rating: 
Summary: More an essay than a novel
Review: What do I like about the Difference Engine? It's absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what the world of the Victorian era would have been like had mechanical computers been perfected in the early 1800s. The detail of the world is wonderful, from the kinescopes (similar to movie or slide projectors) to the pollution, the politics and the stark differences between our own history and what might have been.What don't I like? Well, there isn't much of a plot. The most involved plot occurs where the book follows Mallory, and through those portions the book is somewhat enjoyable, but it never really gets to the meat. Why are these boxes of punch cards so important? Who wants them and why? What happened to the other elements of the story that got left behind? The book gets lost along the way, and never really fully recovers. The end comes almost abruptly, just a few incidents that are supposed to wrap things up, but don't. At the very end, absolutely nothing makes sense, and I even reread the end several times to be sure of that; it reminds me a lot of when I watched the end of 2001 (the movie) for the first time, and didn't understand that either--and yet this was worse, for somehow I got the feeling that I was supposed to know what was happening and yet key pieces of the puzzle had been overlooked by the authors. (I suspect this was more Sterling's doing than Gibson's.) As a curiosity, a look at what might have been, this book merits some attention. As a novel, it's just not so hot, though it has its moments.
Rating: 
Summary: More than the sum of their faults
Review: Gibson and Stirling write such wonderfully crafted books that you have to wonder how together they wrote THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE into the ground. The characters in the story act as if they are the ones who are gear-driven automatons. The plot consists of winding their keys and letting them wander aimlessly around a seedy and unconvincingly technological Victorian Englnd. Gibson and Stirling eventually let their story wind down and have to conjure up a disappointing ending before all of its momentum is lost. Whoops, too late. I am amazed by the number of people who like this novel. It is flat and tedious especially when compared to their other great works, such as Gibson's NEUROMANCER and nearly every other book Stirling has written. Ignore this book if you have not read it and enjoy Gibson and Stirling, separately, at their best.
Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: Bruce Sterling is one of the finest writers working these days, and William Gibson, while something of a one-trick pony, can write a good novel. You would expect THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE to be pretty good. Certainly the concept (alternate history Victoriana with Babbage's machine a reality) is fertile. Sterling and Gibson did their homework (almost too well--the references to Disraeli's books are likely to fall very flat for most readers). The prose is nothing special, but is certainly readable. And yet the novel doesn't hold together. It's difficult to put a finger on just what's wrong with THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE. The ending is both weak and contrived, but that isn't really the fatal flaw. Somehow, a lot of inventive sound and clever fury adds up to nothing much, and even leaves a slightly distasteful sensation in the reader's mind. Read Gibson's NEUROMANCER, or pretty much anything by Sterling, and you'll be much better off than you will be reading this book.
Rating: 
Summary: I wonder why so many people didn't like it...
Review: Well, what can I say... I've just finished reading this book... At this precise moment, I am feeling a kind of grief, which I usually feel when some book, that I really enjoyed, ends. I am missing not only the characters, but mainly the world itself. And, to my disappointment, there are no sufficient interesting opinions about this story, in this site... Most of the people here seems to complain about excessive details and the lack of a plot... I almost understand the reasons for the first (but I don't agree at all, and I am NOT an expert of 19th century).. However, "lack of a plot" sounds almost offensive... To me, it's always the little details that make a good story, plus the capacity to "tie" these events in a clever and interesting manner... I just can't explain it, but I really believe that the word "plot" is just not good enough (there is no plot in "Crime & Punishment", for instance, but it is still one of the best books i've ever read). And the end was not unsatisfatory at all. In fact, I confess that I kind of guessed what was all about in the first 300 pages, so the conclusion was not THAT surprising (there are many clues along the book, though - the word "iteration" being an obvious one). But it only prooves that it wasn't an "anti-climax"; since the begining, the book was destinated to end like that. So, I give you this hint: if you are a typical sci-fi lover, like "straight" stories, with plain characters, not too much (non scientific) details and a good definition of who-they-are and where-they-need-to-go; just DON'T read this book... You probably already prefer Asimov to Gibson, so why keep trying...
Rating: 
Summary: Confusing for the non-historical
Review: The theory and premise of this book caught my attention. I felt that the arrival of the working computer a century before it's [current] time would make for an interesting tale of an alternate reality. Unfortunately, the story depends on the reader having a great deal of historical and cultural knowledge of the Victorian age. The descriptions, while richly portrayed do not really add to the tale and the story telling tends to drag. Those who do not have a good basic education in history will probably not enjoy this book. They will find the settings and meticulously related conversations tedious and slow. Those with an education in computer science may find the language devised for "techno-speak" of the Victorian era cumbersome and a bit ludicrous. I felt I had to wade through a great deal of fluffy descriptive narrative to get to the nuggets that advanced the tale. It would have been a much better story had it explained more, relied on established history less and perhaps kept the story-line a bit simpler. Better as a novella or short story.
Rating:
Summary: Creative but problematic
Review: The one thing that struck me the most about this book is that you have to know quite a bit in order to fully appreciate it. You have to understand something of Victorian culture and technology; you have to understand the significant historic figures of the time; you have to understand the players in the industrial revolution and of the scientific community. There are no explanations in this book - it is mostly assumed that you have this type of knowledge. If you do not have this knowledge, the meaning and depth of some events will be lost on you (which defeats part of the seeming purpose of the book) - and you will be even more confused as you are immersed in a fictional culture that is, to a point, supposed to already be a bit disorienting. What this book does well is work as an anthropological treatise. It describes in great detail - one might say EXHAUSTING detail - the routine, day-to-day moments of life in a theoretical culture that could have been. I was originally drawn to this book because the premise was intriguing: what if the computer revolution had intersected the historic time-line 100 years earlier than it did? As I have stated, this novel presents a plausible and intriguing vision of such an intersection. Unfortunately, that's almost all it does. There is a purpose to it all - what could be described, in a more low sense, as a hook or "gotcha" at the end of it - but the 400 some odd pages leading up to it weren't an adequate justification for it, in my opinion. While the ending wasn't intended as "a hook," the episodic, sometimes wandering nature of the main story-line weakened the conclusion's impact. Ultimately, it came across as being far too much labor to go through to arrive at, essentially, the ending of The Wizard of Oz.
Rating:
Summary: Good in concept, poor in execution
Review: Having just read this book over a period of a few days, I have to say that this was probably one of the most frustrating books I have ever read (I forced myself to read it through to the end). From reading the amazon.com reviews of this book.. there seems to be two schools of thought about this book.. one that criticizes the book for its lack of plot and direction, and another that heaps praise upon it for its technical accuracy and cunning placement of notable historical figures. I know it is never nice to be put in the "I just don't get it" camp.. but that appears to be the one I am in.. the narritive annoyingly jumped around from plot thread to plot thread, throwing in excerpts of unrelated drivel which confused me greatly. The story never went anywhere, and the resolution (if it could be called that) was certainly unsatisfactory for me. Sure the setting was comprehenisvely researched and lovingly constructed, and I suppose could be classified as a good 'concept' book, but it fails as a book to tells an engaging story. Don't get me wrong here, the few plot threads that were explored were well written.. it is just that the characters were pretty much dumped at differing points throughout the book.. and were never satisfactorily tied back into the story at any time. It felt like time wasted. This book waffles.. Maybe it will improve with a second reading.. but I doubt if I have the stomach to tolerate it.
Rating:
Summary: annoying
Review: Despite having a great idea for a story, the characters and lame attempts at 19th century slang made this book unreadable. I couldn't get past page 50.
Rating:
Summary: well drawn, but too clever by half
Review: An alternate future past of 19th century England is thorough and believable. The intricacies of plot trip over themselves trying to be cryptic though and ultimately it wasn't a very satisfying read. Many plot lines and alternate histories are supposed to converge, but I really don't think that they do. Imagine the deliberate muddiness of Pynchon but with neither the underlying purpose or humor. Despite liking Gibson's other (admittedly opaque) work, if I had it to do over again I wouldn't have read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the time
Review: As several previous reviewers have commented extensively on the plot(or lack thereof), I will not go into detail on that. As a serious fan of both Gibson and to a lesser extent Stirling, when I heard about the colloboration on this novel I had very high hopes. Initially I was very dissappointed, the novel really seemed to drag, and the plot seemed to disappear in overwhelming detail, then I reached the far too brief section ending the first iteration and was just blown away by the sudden feeling that all of this actually had meaning. The less narrative sections at the ends of each iteration gave me enough encouragement to finish the novel, particularly the rather enjoyable one at the end after the nominal storyline is concluded. After I finished it I found myself suffieciently fascinated by the world and to a lesser extent the characters that I immediately reread the book and came away feeling satisfied that it had been worth the effort. This is not a masterpiece when viewed purely as a novel but its real value lies in an exceptionally precise and detailed evocation of a Victorian Era that could have been, and the subtle parallels to our own situation. In the effects of the computer revolution on the Victorian Era we see reflections in a dark mirror of the effects on our own era, specific applicability is not certain but I liked the way that the perspectives from later times scattered throughout the book, particularly in the final section give hints of ways that our own society might go. In a final note some of the historical variations, Keats as a Hacker, Byron as the Prime Minister and others too numerous to mention are quite entertaining and sometimes enlightening, I particularly liked the way that it is strongly suggested that ones career is more a matter of chance than commonly thought. If you are willing to spend the time this novel is well worth reading, but be warned that it is often slow moving. It is emphatically not a page burner and is best appreciated with time to ponder its subtleties.
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