The Difference Engine
By William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
Gollancz
Mindfuck.
That’s the word a friend of mine uses to describe books like the new novel by the God of cyberpunk William Gibson and co-author Bruce Sterling.
The Difference Engine, the long-awaited fourth novel by Gibson, is aptly described with that image: it draws you in, spits you out, sucks you in again and just when you think you know what’s going on, throws you a hundred and forty years forward into the present that’s clearly somebody else’s warped nightmare of technology’s gloomy eye.
It’s the eye, an Orwellian spectre stemming from an alternative history’s skewed development, that establishes the more disturbing elements of the book. Set in London in 1855, the steam-driven cybernetic engine (equivalent to your IBM, only bigger) holds power over the city, with the clackers feeding in requests and pulling up the files of all the seedy criminals and plenty of the ordinary citizens of England.
Actually, in this book of history-punk intrigue, it’s hard to imagine where exactly the ordinary citizens would fit in. Certainly he or she wouldn’t be represented by characters like General Sam Houston, the exiled ruler of Texas. Nor would Edward Mallory — Leviathan Mallory to the masses, and one of the many savants who work within the scientific hierarchy of this alternative reality — be considered an average individual.
Indeed, as the Great Stink, a polluted cloud of deathly fog rolling off the Thames to throw London into anarchy, begins to manifest itself, even the most ordinary folk seem to turn insane. This twisted foreshadowing of our own doom at the hands of technology and governmental stratification is excellently portrayed by the authors, whose beautiful renderings of a dank London are enhanced by the colorful dialogue and shadowy subterfuge. The plot of the novel is filled with secret alliances and allegiances: just as one who strikes gold revels at each new vein of riches, so too does the reader plumb the endless depth of this tale.
Endless would be another fine term to describe this work, not because the book is weighty and overlong — on the contrary it is an excellently written and compelling narrative — but because there is a pervading sense that this is just a footnote in the intricate text these authors have created.
A fascinating Phillip K. Dick-like genre, history-punk will prove appealing to everybody: Sci-fi fans will be engrossed in the images of the Great Stink and the behemoth engines; history buffs will delight in the clever twistings of truth (such as Karl Marx leading his communist revolt in Manhattan); science types will giggle at the theory of how back pains can be eliminated by reversing the polar electricity of the spinal column.
Disappointingly, the end wanders off into entertaining yet obscure passages that tend to confuse the blurry plot rather than add to it. It seems to be saying, “We’ve given you this story, and like life, things have changed, moved on, died and lived and will forever remain untold.”
This sense of letdown is coupled with the knowledge that you’ve obviously missed the intricate details, the subtle currents which make this book one that will live forever. For you will find yourself aching to reread and relive this adventuresome work.
The Difference Engine, published by Gollancz Limited in the U.K., has not yet been released in Canada. Ask your bookstore if it will be available in time for the holidays.
