Bruce Sterling & William Gibson: The Difference Engine

[arnuld]

I like SF and I just finished reading The Difference Engine - Bruce Sterling & William Gibson.

Honestly I did not like that book. I totally hate it, This was the 1st time I read an alternate-history novel but it did not work out as expected . I also read William Gibson's Burning Chrome. but then again I did not like it, seemed like atotal wastage of money. Anyway, I am not going to read William Gibson or Bruce Sterling again ( except The Hacker Crackdown, for which I am very curious, as that is non-fiction work by Bruce Sterling ).

2nd, I read, The Man Who Sold the Moon by Robert Heinlein and it was excellent and The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov and it was great too .

 

[sparkchaser]

What didn't you like about it? Writing style? Storyline?

 

[arnuld]

What didn't you like about it? Writing style? Storyline?

umm.. I had the same discussion with someone else but I forgot the thread otherwise I could have replied there. I am not able to find that thread, anyway, here are the reasons:


1.) Writing Style: . I totally hated this style of writing . I can't seem to understand what was the point of using such alternative-English anything at all. I am not a native English speaker and I can understand 90% of the communication in a Hollywood movie but the style in which is novel is written is not what I think fits into the reasoning.

Style is different and I agree on that and I like practicing some different and unique styles but not this one.

2.) Story: I wasn't able to make much out of the story. I can't find the Why of writing such alternate history.

3.) Sir, Sit, Sir and Sir and Madam , Madam and Madam: too much use of Sir and Madam, even between friends but someone explained this to me that people use to address themselves like this in 1800s, so it is acceptable but I will cut down all the novels from my reading list using this type of communication.

 

[Peder]

Two of William Gibson's more famous ones, which I don't think suffer from the drawbacks you mention, are Neuromancer and Pattern Recognition. You could give one of those a try before you give up on him completely. I myself am wary of co-authored books because it might have been the co-author's style you ran into and didn't like. At least that's a thought.

 

[sparkchaser]

umm.. I had the same discussion with someone else but I forgot the thread otherwise I could have replied there. I am not able to find that thread, anyway, here are the reasons:

That would have been me.

Gibson's sprawl trilogy has an easier to read prose than most of his stuff.

 

[beer good]

So I just finished this, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

On the one hand, the world-building part of it is excellent and even believable (at least in an "i buy it as fiction" way). Computers happen to be invented 100 years earlier so that the industrial revolution and the information revolution coincide; now you have Victorians trying to make sense of a world where hackers (or rather "clackers", given that nobody's invented plastic, magnetic tape or transistors yet) control the information, where the United States quickly fell apart into several warring nations thanks to the UK's automated intelligence service, where rationalism has taken over completely (Lord Babbage, Lord Darwin, etc) and the Luddites have become not only enemies of the state but outright terrorists - thoughtcrime, du-du-du-dudu-du. And they write it all like a saucier Englisher Jule Verne novel, complete with mustache-twirling villains and upright gentleman "heroes" saying things like

"Some folk pass their very lives in the mud of the Thames."
"Who's that then?" asked Tom.
"Mudlarks," Fraser told him, picking his way. "Winter and summer, they slog up to their middles, in the mud o' low tide. Hunting lumps o' coal, rusty nails, any river-rubbish that will fetch a penny."
"Are you joking?" Tom asked.
"Children mostly," Fraser persisted calmly, "and a deal of feeble old women."
"I don't believe you," Brian said. "If you told me Bombay or Calcutta, I might grant it. But not London!"
"I didn't say the wretches were British," Fraser said. "Your mudlarks are foreigners, mostly. Poor refugees."
"Well, then," Tom said, relieved.

...so that you have to keep your eyes open to notice that it's actually women doing most of the heavy lifting in the novel, despite still being thought of as lesser creatures. It's two paradigm shifts at once. Or probably more than that.

Unfortunately, the plot is convoluted to say the least. It's told in several interlocking storylines that don't really interlock, that don't really feel like they get resolved. Plus, with most of the characters being rather stuck-up unlikable fools in a lot of ways, it's difficult to find one to latch on to - especially since they tend to get written out for a few hundred pages.

Fascinating effort though, and I'll never not like the idea of steampunk.

 

[sparkchaser]

Fascinating effort though, and I'll never not like the idea of steampunk.

What's not to like about steampunk?

 

[beer good]

What's not to like about steampunk?

Well, exactly.

 

[Gabrielle Ray]

Well, exactly.

'Said' with such finesse. I'm not convinced by steampunk either.

 

[beer good]

What I meant was that steampunk in general - and steampunk Daleks in particular - is a fantastic idea, which The Difference Engine makes poor use of.

Not that it has any Daleks. It could have used them.

 

[sparkchaser]

I finished this last week and Overall I enjoyed it. I liked the alternative history of the whole world, including an American Civil War that happened decades earlier and ended quite differently. I found the world believable, and I liked that the authors moving The Great Stink from 1858 to 1855.

I had hoped that the "plastic" Kino cards

Spoiler

contained formulas for powered flight, as such a thing was alluded to at least twice in the book but it wasn't to be

.

What I didn't like was:

Spoiler

[*]the sex scenes. William Gibson (or Bruce sterling) either need to learn how to write them well or just not include them.

[*]the Kino cards. For such a central plot device, they ended up being, in my mind anyway, not that big of a deal. Or maybe not. As I think about it right now, I guess those cards were the first engine virus. OK, pretty cool.

Overall I give it