The novel “The Difference Engine” by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling was published for the first time in 1990.

Edward Mallory is a paleontologist who’s having a break between his various trips and is in London. Following a chance meeting with Lady Ada Byron, the daughter of the British Prime Minister, he gets involved in an international plot that revolves around the Modus, a program on punched cards which, when used with one of the machines developed upon Charles Babbage’s projects, allows winning bets.

When Edward Mallory gets in possession of the Modus, decides to protect it from the attempts by hostile agents, both domestic would-be rebels and foreign ones, to steal it. With the help of Laurence Oliphant, he faces the direct and indirect attacks of the mysterious Captain Swing, who wants to destroy the British Empire.

William Gibson and Bruce Sterling are best known as masters of cyberpunk but among the products of their collaboration there’s this alternative history of the technological developments in the Victorian era. The steampunk subgenre had already existed for some years and was often a kind of secret history that happened in our timeline. “The Difference Engine” is instead a ucronia because the premature development of information technology described in the novel has a considerable impact on world history.

The novel is based on real characters and events because Charles Babbage spent his life trying to develop more and more sophisticated computers. A big problem for him was the technology of his time, not yet sufficiently advanced to allow him to build machines so complex and sophisticated. What would have happened if Babbage had managed to realize his plans?

“The Difference Engine” is set primarily in 1855, about thirty years after Charles Babbage was able to build the difference engine of the title and also the the analytical engine, even more sophisticated. The information technology revolution that follows has profound consequences not only within the British Empire but also in the rest of the world.

In a few decades, the impact of the Victorian information technology revolution is from the social and political point of view much greater than that actually occurred at the end of the 20th century. In the course of “The Difference Engine” many details are provided that slowly give us a picture of the situation in that alternative world.

Often steampunk stories focus on technological inventions, instead William Gibson and Bruce Sterling develop “The Difference Engine” in a manner more similar to their cyberpunk stories. The alternative technology is certainly important but there aren’t many details about the mechanical computers that exist in that alternate history. On the contrary, the social and political elements are described with great attention.

The characters are partly sacrificed too with a development that is limited, also because they’re seen in a detached manner, by a narrator at least initially is mysterious. The novel is fragmented into several parts and not in all them the protagonists are the same. Edward Mallory is the protagonist of the main story but, like most of the other characters, is victim of events that at least initially he can’t understand.

Often, in the course of the novel, the characters with their actions and their conversations seem to be put there only to allow the authors to provide further details on the alternative world. The result is a highly fragmented story of which it’s difficult to understand the meaning and often has a slow pace.

In the end, “The Difference Engine” seems a novel especially suited to science fiction fans who are also fans of the Victorian era, who can have fun recognizing the differences from the real story. This concerns the events but also the lives of the historical figures included in the story, even if only through citations.

Personally, I find “The Difference Engine” overrated. It has a controversial reputation and isn’t suitable for all tastes. In my opinion it may appeal to fans of steampunk, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.