How could you go wrong with a plot based on the What If of Charles Babbage's difference engine actually being built, working, and changing the course of human innovation by bringing about the computer age as a realized steampunk past? How could you go wrong with a team of the most talented cyberpunk writers, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling?

Well, it went wrong. I forced myself through it, I had to get to the end regardless how many other things I'd rather be doing at the time. The characters didn't engage my interest for the most part and in the rare case that one did get into a bit of interesting tiff, the authors shortchanged me by going away to a different and less interesting storyline. There were so many starts and stops that I just lost track of who was doing what, where, and why should I care.

It could have been so much more, but it wasn't.

- CV Rick

Ugh. I MADE myself finish this book, and I still feel unsatisfied. It was long, the many details didn't go anywhere like they do in Gibson's other (wonderful) works, and the story never seems to come together. When I finished reading it, I just had to admit that I didn't get the point. I'm very disappointed. I can read all of Gibson's books over again and still be intrigued, fascinated and delighted with the worlds he creates, but I had a hard time getting through this one even once.

Recipe for an excellent book:
1 Very excellent author, whose grocery lists are probably high art.
1 Passing fair author who is clearly a devotee of the above.
1 excellent idea
1 scathing view of modern politics and the direction of culture
8 or more well developed characters

In a perfect world, you place these things in a blender and out pops a perfect book (Deus Irae by Dick and Zelanzny, for example.) In the chaotic universe, however, sometimes the ingredients just aren't enough.

In well-over twenty years of reading science fiction, spec and alternative history there, literally, has never been a book I found more appealing (before reading) than The Difference Engine. Co-authored by my favorite living author, firmly based in my own political views, discussing a time frame and technologies I enjoy reading about, I had every expectation of a read that would be enjoyable.

I am a forgiving reader who can be caught up in the art not the story, if the story fails (and this one does). Turn a phrase prettily and I will forgive a lack of plot in a heartbeat. Have a stirring plot and sanitized seventh-grade English and I will plow through just to see how it ends, even if I loathe your style. Have a plot that is one-dimensional, and writing that is more so, and I will freely admit to a deep hatred of your work (ahem. Mercedes Lackey, Orson Scott Card, ahem...) but I will *still* give you a chance on occasion (and hate myself for doing it.)

When I read The Difference Engine, I tried to imagine everything other than the book itself that would inspire such loathing in me. Did I have PMS? Did I not get it? Was I under stress? Sick? Unhappy at something else and projecting it onto this book?

I read it again. I have heard of people not getting Neuromancer and hating it, and figured maybe even though that concept was alien to me, I would get it if I read it again...

So I did. I read the characters with the flat affect of a dozen schizophrenics on Haldol and Thorazine and went "why are these characters this way? Is it part of the story? (No, just terrible writing.) I re-read the sex scene that went on for a couple of dozen pages with all the eroticism of a minimalist story about defecation and all the appeal of a 1950s VD movie flickering on an old 35mm projector. Ick! I read the fascinating plot and the fascinating world and realized I found it as interesting as belly button lint.... No, that's not appropriate. At least belly button lint you can wonder about!

The Difference Engine vacillates between a tour guide to a completely uninteresting alternate reality, sweaty soft-core porn that has the sex appeal of syphilis and the inner workings of characters that are, themselves, nothing but punch-cards in a world of PCs. They don't work, they don't tell you anything, and we just don't have the capacity to get much use out of them in our world.

I expect, someday in the future, we'll find out that the book was ten times longer and some terrible editor butchered it, and that's why it was so very sucktacular. At that time, I will go back to my previous view of Gibson as an author with the Midas touch.