The Difference Engine

The Difference Engine (1990) is an alternative history novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. It has been described as an early work of the steampunk genre, and is regarded as having helped to establish that genre's conventions. It posits a Victorian-era Britain in which great technological and social change has occurred after the mechanical computers of Charles Babbage make widespread impact, there and globally, resulting in historical individuals taking on markedly different roles (Lord Byron instead surviving the Greek War of Independence to lead Britain, the late Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli instead becoming a tabloid writer, etc.), and European and American continents of markedly different political dispositions (e.g., the United States being, rather, several competing nations). Behind the manifest progress, Kirkus writes, "20th-century crises brew", providing context for a "cops-and-robbers plot". The novel received nominations for several major science fiction awards in the years following its publication. It has been the subject of continuing scholarly interest for its approach to history and particular historical characters, and for its relationship to the Disraeli novel, Sybil.