"The year is 1855. London. The city swelters in a poisonous heatwave.

"The computer age has arrived a century ahead of time, with Charles Babbage's perfection of his Analytical Engine. The Industrial Revolution, supercharged by the development of steam-driven cybernetic Engines, is in full and drastic swing. Great Britain, with her calculating-cannons, steam dreadnoughts, machine guns and information technology, prepares to better the world's lot...

"Sybil Gerard, ruined woman, politician's tart, daughter of a notorious Luddite; Edward Mallory, explorer, palaeontologist, the discoverer of the famed Land Leviathan; Lady Ada Byron, daughter of the Prime Minister, mathematical genius, compulsive gambler, the Queen of Engines; these three and many others are unwitting participants in a conspiracy linking Great Britain with the France of Louis Napoleon and the Manhattan commune of Karl Marx." [jacket blurb, UK trade edition, 1991]

"The Difference Engine is dense, kinetic and timely. It's a steampunk extravaganza, a convoluted spy thriller, a political and philosophical cannonade. It's difficult to describe, but perhaps it's a bit like reading the work of Arthur Conan Doyle, John Brunner, John le Carre and Thomas Pynchon, all thrown in together as a Burroughs cut-up. It's got all the logical depth and cross-scalar self-similarity of the Mandelbrot Set. In a word, this Engine is stokin'." --Glenn Grant (in Science Fiction Eye , Issue 8, Winter 1991).

"A visionary steam-powered heavy metal fantasy, Gibson and Sterling create a high-Victorian virtual reality of extraordinary richness and detail." --Ridley Scott.

"An interesting idea rendered with fine detail and charmingly told. Enjoy it." --Henry W.Targowski (in Mark/Space , 1995).

Recommended.

• Ada: The Enchantress of Numbers by Betty Alexandra Toole
  (1992, non-fiction... Strawberry Press, Mill Valley, Califonia, US... annotated collection of Ada Lovelace's letters)

Babbage's Intelligence: Calculating Engines and the Factory System
(an online paper on Babbage's work by Simon Schaffer)

Doctor Gunn's Patented History Restorer
(originally published in SF Eye , Issue 8, Winter 1991... refers to The Difference Engine ...
"Eileen Gunn's web site, which includes the complete text of her 'Difference Dictionary', a.k.a. 'Doctor Gunn's Patented History Restorer'."--John D. Berry.)

Resource Guide to Bruce Sterling
(contains links to online texts by Bruce Sterling)

Two Readings from The Difference Engine
(contains two excerpts from The Difference Engine : "Lady Ada's Speech on the Modus Program" and "The Grindwell Necropolis"... plus an excerpt from "The Gernsback Continuum")

William Gibson's Yardshow
(officially sanctioned homepage...
*note: this link takes you to the new address... here's the old URL.)