The difference engine

1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. And three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with historyand the future: Sybil Gerarda fallen woman, politician's tart, daughter of a Luddite agitator Edward ';Leviathan' Malloryexplorer and paleontologist Laurence Oliphantdiplomat, mystic, and spy. Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin and purpose. Cards someone wants badly enough to kill for. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine is the collaborative masterpiece by two of the most acclaimed science fiction authors writing today. Provocative, compelling, intensely imagined, it is a startling extension of Gibson's and Sterling's unique visionsand the beginning of movement we know today as ';steampunk!'