The Difference Engine

My review of the second Steampunk novel I bought a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

The Difference Engine. Widely regarded as being the novel any self-respecting Steampunk must own, or, at the very least, read. So where to start?

The synopsis, I suppose. Imagine for a moment the Industrial Revolution. And now imagine that Charles Babbage, the father of the computer, succeeded in getting funding for his Analytical Engine in the 1840s. Had it not been for his death, it would have happened.

In the book he lives, and his Analytical Engine is an unbridled success. And with that, the Industrial Revolution goes into overdrive. It is now 1855, a year in our own timeline which saw the Great Stink, the completion of the bones of the British railway network, the Crimean war and not much else. In the book, the computer has made possible great technological advances years before they actually happened.

In the book, 1855 sees a fully functioning underground railway system, 8 years before our own was even begun. Tarmac is widely used for road surfaces, 70 years before it was even invented in reality. Horse drawn carriages have been completely replaced by steam-driven conveyances. Credit cards are widely used, and great skyscrapers grace the skyline of London.

But this progress has its enemies, the Luddites. In the 1830s, political turmoil saw the engineers and the proponents of mechanisation come out on top. The Ludds ere ruthlessly put down, but now they are returning.

The book follows the struggle between the Luddites and the Industrial Radicals, under the leadership of Lords Byron, Brunel and Babbage.

And it is truly epic.

The book is absolutely packed with period details, which creates a world that strikes the reader as being eminantly plausible. The characters can easily be identified with and actually feel human, rather than being the product of Gibson and Stephenson's imaginations.

There are a few imperfections- the endpiece of the chapters I felt had little to add to the plot and rarely actually made sense. The end itself is ambiguous to say the best. But, and this is the thing, these really don't matter. The greatest imperfection I can find is that this is a stand alone work. It needs a sequel, or, even better, an entire series.

Egads!

From my previous entries I now return to normal service- going on about my work.

Now I finished all of the work on Sunday and sent it over to my tutor on Monday. Who replied that she couldn't look at it and that I should now follow submission guidelines on the University website.

Needless to say, these guidelines either don't exist or are so thoroughly hidden that I couldn't find them. Another email off to my tutor asking whether I had to email the work somewhere else. No reply, so I sent another. Still no reply.

Eventually I rang the University, to be told that I had to print all of my work off and then post it in.

So yesterday we had a merry mad dash to find a printers, print it, stuff it in an envelope and mail it for next day delivery.

Why does the University have to be so cantankerous? Surely it is unethical to refuse to acknowledge the existence of somebody's work simply because it hasn't been submitted in a recognised form?

My Final Steampunk Post Today (I Promise)

A few weeks ago you may recall I mentioned buying 'The Peshawar Lancers' and 'The Difference Engine' and then promising reviews of both once I'd read them.

Well, a few days ago I finished 'The Peshawar Lancers' so here's the review.

The tale takes place in 2025, though not in a world we'd recognise. In 1878, so the story goes, Europe and North America were devastated by a meteorite impact that plunged the northern hemisphere into a four-year nuclear winter. Those who could, escaped. In Britain, Disraeli organised an exodus to South Africa, India and Australia, and approximately 3.5 million people were ferried to those colonies over four years. That still left over 16 million people in Britain, starving and riotting. Those people turned to cannibalism, Disraeli himself being killed by a mob in 1882.

The British Government and Monarchy set up in Delhi, continuing the British Empire as the 'Angrezi-raj'. In India there is a new social class, the 'sahib-log', of upper-and-middle class families of British descent. This class in effect is the government of the Empire.

The Empire itself covers 40% of the landmass of the globe- claiming a recolonised Britain and ALL of North America, from Panama to the Pole.

Abroad, the Russians have become cannibalistic satan-worshippers, ruled still by the Tsar. The French have fled to their North African colonies, but by 2025 have recolonised Metroplitan France and seized Sicily from a powerful Middle-Eastern caliphate. China and Japan have merfged to form the Dai-Nipponese empire.

Technology has stagnated somewhat- in this world steam rules supreme. There are steam trains, there are ironclads, there are maxim machone guns. There are airships and motorcars, but the internal combustion engine does not exist. Where steam is unsuitable motive power, Stirling heat engines are employed.

This, then, is the world the book portrays.

The plot- well, basically, is a little hard to understand. The basic gist of it is that the Russians have infiltrated the Empire's political service and are plotting uprisings so as to weaken it, then propose to wage war to destroy it completely, leaving them the dominant world power.

The book really follows the efforts of a few soldiers and politicians, and the Royal Family, to stop them. There are some scenes of action- for instance, the storming of a disloyal politician's home, a fight in the desert, a fight on the Royal airship. Interwoven are a few love intrigues- the Princess Royal being married off to the Heir of France-Outre-Mer, between Captain King and a defecting Russian seeress, and between his sister Professor King and the Heir to the Lion Throne. (The Lion Throne being King-Emperor of the Angrezi-raj.)

This book is absolutely brilliant, a literary hammer-blow. There are not enough superlatives in the English language that can adequately describe just how good it is.

If you like adventure and intrigue, then you really need to read this book.

And therein I am afraid lies the nub of the problem. The book is not for general sale in the UK unfortunately. It is written for an American audience, and it shows in the choice of baddies- the Russians and Muslims- and in the language used- 'railroad' instead of 'railway' for instance. However, if like me you are lucky enough to be near a branch of Waterstones that stocks American imports it can be yours for the princely sum of £6.50. An absolute bargain.

Some more Steampunk...

The previous post, for all you know, may have been something I merely made up, a figment of my imagination.

So I present to you the link so you too can take the test and see how you'd turn out in an alternate mechanical-marvel history:

http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-steampunk-style-test

It's only a short 8-question quiz and takes no more than one or two minutes.

Now anyone who has ever met me would attest that I perceive myself as some sort of neo-aristocratic figure, so I'd say it's pretty accurate...

The Steampunk Style Test

The Aristocrat

82% Elegant, 48% Technological, 50% Historical, 28% Adventurous and 6% Playful!

You are the Aristocrat, the embodiment of steampunk elegance and poise. For you, dressing steampunk is first and foremost about simply looking good, with accessories and details to follow. However, this does not mean that you ignore the demands of creating a “steampunk look.” Your outfits weave together a balance between technology and style, and between period accuracy and beautiful anachronism. While your fashion inspiration may come from anywhere across the Victorian social spectrum, you always find a way to make your outfit beautiful. You will probably be found in the clothes of the steam age elite simply because of the greater elegance available to them. Chances are you dress this way because you like it, and you would still dress in this manner even if steampunk was not a popular interest.

I just do not get it one iota...

Understanding that we haven't been living under a rock for the past, I don't know, four years, we all know that the Olympics opens up this Friday. In a country that shows it's proud to be backward in both its politics and its human rights, and, if you'll permit just a little decidedly un-PC racism here, also proves that neanderthals still walk the Earth and that apes are just a little closer to being human than we're ready to admit.

So you can see I despise China. For reasons even I do not fully understand. Perhaps it has something to do with having to live with a pair of Chinese people for a year and we didn't exactly get on too well.

But onto the main show. The Olympics. Big whoop they open. But all they are is one giant overgrown track-and-field event where the Americans either boycott it or else put in about 95% of the competitors, flood every event and then predictably win everything. Paula Radcliffe will run about 200 yards of a 26-mile marathon and then collapse in floods of tears and the only sports we'll do well in (well, ish) are the ones absolutely nobody in the country follows or understands. Like dressage, rowing and sailing. Think about it. When is the last time you sat down and watched and understood either a steeplechase, Henley Regatta or the Americas Cup?

Never, that's when.

So, I don't like the Chinese and I don't care much for the Olympics either. But then the BBC start harping on about it... and go on and on and on until pretty much everyone is considerably past caring. Why? Why does Huh Edwards have to be in Beijing for a week before the bloody thing even kicks off? Why do we need to know that it is two days, seven hours, fourteen minutes and fifty-eight seconds until the opening ceremony? Personally I'm more interested in the closing one... much less Communist monkey nationalist anti-democratic jingoism for a start, you see.

So for the next fortnight or so if you don't mind particularly I'm going to haul down the television aerials, cut off my internet access, not read a newspaper and generally live under a rock, until these cretins-in-leotard type tossers we call 'atheletes' fuck back off again to whichever hovel they besmirch for the next four years again.

And as a final two-finger salute to the whole thing... Free Tibet.

What time hath wrought...

I note with trepidation that it has been a fortnight since I last posted a non-progress report here, and probably bored every single reader into a stupor. A Whole Fortnight!

I can only apologise, and furthermore ledge that I shall attempt not to leave you dangling thus in future.

And with that... onto more relevant affairs.

For a start... my concert hall lives! It breathes! It works! Huzzah and hurrah! Can you tell I'm just a little pleased about that?

Also... elevations are completed. Now I just have to do my internal view (from the top row down onto the stage) and then can get on with all my technical work too. The trouble is that 3D work is not exactly my speciality.

Aside from that, I went to Birmingham on Monday and am now a member of the Central Library there. Which is huge. As in, I don't know, eight-storeys-tall-and-covers-an-area-the-size-of-Wales huge. You can guess the rest. We got lost in there.

And when we did finally blunder our way out back into the open air, we ended up in Waterstones. Where I procured neo-Victorian science fiction novels The Peshawar Lancers and The Difference Engine. Both of which are utterly wonderful. Expect full reviews in due course.