The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

From our two lords of cyberpunk, we are brought something collectively made and different. The Difference Engine is considered an essential in the forming of Steampunk as a subgenre. It was written collectively through the mail, as the two writers Mailed floppy disks to each other from Texas to British Columbia. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? 

Instead of a regular novel, we got a collection of stories centering on a theme of analog computers, and the Babbage Machine. Instead of getting high tech low lifes in an imagined future, we get those types of characters in a less-imagined victorian setting. While it's not my favorite thing from either writer, I consider the book as successful experiment in form and genre. 

No comments:

Post a Comment