Rating: 
Summary: Effort is rewarded...
Review: This is hard to read; I almost didn't finish it the first time around
On re-reading it, I started to appreciate the alternate history Gibson and Bear
have created; it helps to have a passing acquaintance with
British history and computing history, otherwise large chunks make almost no sense whatsoever. Overloaded with detail, with an ending that appears
to leave the most intriguing plot strand unresolved, the book still manages to evoke
the feel of Victorian society through the characters use of
language and behaviour, so different from our own. I also liked the appearance of
Disraeli, a nice touch. Well worth the effort, and fires the imagination of what could have been..
Rating: 
Summary: Bleh......
Review: Okay so I am a huge fan of Gibson's after Burning Chrome and Neuromancer... And Bruce Sterling writes some awesome stuff too and I think.. HEY.. This should be good right..... Well I dunno but plodding though London in a period novelwith vague references a machine scattered in the swill and grime of one man's obsessive, abusive relationships with women is not my idea of a fun read... Detailed yes... But so is an encyclopedia... Sorry gentleman... This was a stinker....
Rating:
Summary: Why Bother? I saw no Difference.
Review: As I plowed through this story, I alternately had feelings of amazement and bewilderment. The authors' over indulgence in festooning us with fine details that were pretty much gratuitous, while totaling forgeting about telling us a story with some sort focus or meaning, was quite annoying. Though not expecting Sci-Fi on the level of Asimov, Clarke or any other of the demi-gods of Sci-Fi, I did expect a story that could at least hold its own within its own universe
Rating: 
Summary: Tough to put down, a worthwhile read.
Review: Contrary to the mass of negativity that has
surfaced regarding this work, I feel obliged
to defend it and sing its praises. The dystopia
that Gibson and Sterling create is a wonderfully
detailed glimpse of what "cyberculture" could
have been in the height of the Victorian age. The mystery plot kept the book moving along, without being too distracting from the excellent
descriptions of the world that could have been.
The shifts in point of view from section to
section highlight not only the diversity of
physical imagery, but also the variety of
psychological landscapes one could meet in this
alternate reality. Not a book to read for
blaster-packing action or for futuristic
technological predictions... rather an excellent
attempt at following the question "What if Babbage's computers became a part of Victorian society, like modern computers have in our time?"
Overall, a great delve into alternate history, with the ambience of certain Sherlock Holmes tales.
Rating:
Summary: Smoothly paced and densely planned.
Review: Find me "A reader" who didn't like this book and you've found me a reader who didn't read
Rating:
Summary: Par Excellence No Matter What Anyone Says
Review: It's been a while since I read this, but after all the negative reviews I just had to say something. The Difference Engine is probably the best cyberpunk book ever (written just a few years before Holloywood would kill the genre mercilessly), and ironically there's not a computer in sight. The novel is very dense with sometimes inscrutable characters and complex plots, but after all it's the most postmodern of any current science fiction and is clearly not meant to be enjoyed like other science fiction. This is not a swashbuckling, space-opera epic; it is a sometimes loud, sometimes soft meditation on technology, human nature, and history
Rating:
Summary: Stay away from this puppy...
Review: Bad book. Simplistic, so simplistic in fact, i skipped pages at a time and stayed with it. I can't tell you how the bugger ends, cause i got sick of reading it and didn't finish
Rating:
Summary: Good idea, terrible story
Review: Reading The Difference Engine, I could imagine Gibson andSterling's tug of war over the direction of the story. "Iwant to write about this!" "No, we've got to have this!" "Well, I'm a bigger pop icon than you are!" "Well I write for Wired!" OK, it may not have been that bad. Whatever happened, the result is an unstatisfying clash of styles. The story lacks focus, often jumping between different characters for no good reason. Even the ending resolves nothing and leaves too many questions. The world of The Difference Engine is facinating, but the story isn't.
Rating:
Summary: Meat, not gruel
Review: I'm puzzled by the complaint (made by several reviewers below) that the plot threads are never tied up (yes they are, in the final third of the novel) and that we never find out what the mysterious punch cards do (we most certainly do -- see pp. 387, 421, and 429, where we're told EXACTLY what their function is). This is admittedly a novel that has to be read carefully; one can't just slurp it down like jello without doing any work. It's a serious novel, thank goodness -- not "light entertainment." I'm also puzzled that nobody seems to have noticed what a highly *political* novel this is. This book is much more about political and cultural ideology than it is about alternative-history technology.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: I am a fan of William Gibson, I read a lot of good book written by him and find that he is a very interesting author. I originally bought that book a long time ago, then I lent it to a friend, before reading it. I had forgotten who I lent the book to, but I remembered having purchased it it the past. A few years later, I gave up on finding the book and bought it once again, being intrigued about the premise of a high tech in the not so distant past and all that. While I read it, I did not find that the storyline adequately answered my expectations. It reminded me of the sort of thing I use to watch in a cheap 30 minutes animated character television program when I was a kid. I was bored, I did not like it. Maybe its just my science fiction side that was screaming for the alternate universe where computers (even based on steam engine) appeared about 100 years ago that was disapointed. Can't argue against the characters, the rest of the storyline fits well on its own, it just does not appeal to me.
| 
