1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full swing, powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. Three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with the future: Sybil Gerard--fallen woman, politician's tart, daughter of a Luddite agitator; Edward "Leviathan" Mallory--explorer and paleontologist; Laurence Oliphant--diplomat, mystic, and spy. Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards ...
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1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full swing, powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. Three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with the future: Sybil Gerard--fallen woman, politician's tart, daughter of a Luddite agitator; Edward "Leviathan" Mallory--explorer and paleontologist; Laurence Oliphant--diplomat, mystic, and spy. Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin and purpose. Cards someone wants badly enough to kill for. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine took the science fiction community by storm when it was first published more than twenty years ago. Provocative, compelling, and intensely imagined, this novel is poised to impress a whole new generation.
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Add this copy of The Difference Engine to cart. $55.63, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Brilliance Audio.
This is one of the novels that kicked off the genre now known as "steampunk," and it is still one of the best. In the world of this novel, information processing, using cards and huge buildings full of machines to sort them, existed in Victorian Europe. A host of fascinating technological and social anachronisms create a world that later was echoed in lots of other novels, movies, comics and short stories. Think Sherlock Holmes with Zepplins and giant computers. Aside from pioneering this kind of setting, this novel is a well crafted mystery and thriller.
