Tag: steampunk

Novel response: the Difference Engine

On October 16, 2013

What would happen if there were computers in Victorian Britain? The difference engine as a typical work of steampunk is a novel that answers this question. In this novel, the authors, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, assumes that Charles Babbage not only succeeded in developing his difference engine, a steam-powered machine that can do calculation but also made it have the analytical ability. The appearance of this difference engine or a steam-powered computer changes everything from politics to art, from industrial design to scientific research, from social control to people’s lifestyle. With a machine’s appearance, an alternative history is created.

From the fictive life in the alternative history shaped by a computational machine, we can always see the life of ourselves. For example, with a number Mike can know everything about Sybil. And also with a new number, Sybil could get away from the past and become a new person. Isn’t that number our Google account or Facebook account? From our accounts on Facebook and Google, a strange man has the access to the database can know everything we do in the “Cyberspace” from what we like to watch to what we do for living, from what we look like to what our habits are, from what we did the past and what we may do in the future. With a new account, we lose the friends on Facebook or Google plus and thus we can begin a new “life” online with totally new friends and even with different digital personalities. That makes me think of Who owns the future. I begin to worry about what will big companies like Google and Facebook do with me in the future.

In scientific research, the best way to know the function of an object is to see what is the difference between the results with and without the object. We cannot let history happen again to see the function of computers. But the intelligent authors William Gibson and Bruce Sterling made it by creating an alternative history. Brian Mchale relates the novel to the postmodern interests in “finding a new way of ‘doing’ history is in fiction”. However, I think it is better to say that the novel finds a new way to reflect the reality and predict the future by a fictive story in history.

CITATION:

William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, the Difference Engine. New York: Bantam, 1991.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Difference_Engine

McHale, Brian (1992). “Difference Engine”. ANQ 5: 220–23.

Ian Miles, “The difference engine: William Gibson and Bruce Sterling 383 pages, £13.95 (London, Victor Gollancz, 1990)”, Futures, 23 525 (1991).

The Difference Engine Novel Response

By Mithun Shetty

On October 14, 2013

In Uncategorized

The computer is arguably the most indispensable cultural artifact of our generation. They are essential to our world’s infrastructure – it is the primary method of communication, information transference, transaction, and so much more. We have developed a subconscious reliance on technology to function as a society. Gibson and Sterling’s The Difference Engine entertains a very profound and intriguing related concept in the most thorough way possible – what would our lives be like if the computer (namely, the Babbage’s Difference Engine) was invented almost 200 years before they were actually invented? Gibson and Sterling’s attempt to delve into this hypothetical situation is admirably ambitious and impressively complex. They depict a “speculative past” that loosely parallels our actual past, making assumptions about the supposed trajectory that technological inventions may have taken, as well as societal development that might have occurred following Charles Babbage’s successful creation of the computer. The setting of the novel takes place in 1800’s Victorian London onwards, and features important figures or organizations in London’s history (or fictional analogues) such as The Duke of Wellington, Lord Byron, the Luddites, the Labour Party, etc.

The value of reading this novel is not necessarily derived from its plot – it is instead the distinct structure and rich narration that make it stand out. The novel is divided into five separate iterations of a story, with the fifth iteration being written by the “Modus.” Essentially, iterations are revealed to represent computer-generated alterations of a similar story, which raises some interesting questions about the recording of history and the seemingly infinite variable possibilities of computers. The authors also took on the formidable task of creating a logical environment of an imaginary past. This includes creating systems of politics, economy, communication, and even fashion – they had to communicate an entire, immersive society different than our actual society merely through the art of storytelling. The technological innovations of the imaginary society have many notable counterparts in our real world, which makes the story a unique experience – it serves as a form of social commentary on our present society. Specifically, the balances of power and relationships in the novel based on the hypothetical invention of the computer may perhaps demonstrate how people use technology and information to obtain and consolidate power and develop relationships in our real world. While this novel’s plot might have come across as seemingly disjointed or incoherent, it is a very intricate display of society that neatly explores an alternate past, comments on our real-life present, and suggests an alternate future.

The Difference Engine

By Sai Cheemalapati

On October 13, 2013

In Uncategorized

After the invention of the transistor in the late 1940s and the integrated circuit a few years later, the seeds were lain for the computing age to take off. In the following fifty years, developments in electronics and circuitry would lead to a world economic boom and revolution unprecedented in mankind’s history. The idea for a purely mechanical computer was conceived more than a 100 years before the invention of the computer however – by British inventor Charles Babbage. It begs the question then – what would’ve happened if the computing revolution happened a century earlier with the creation of Babbage’s analytic engine?

The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, takes place in a world where the above takes place. In this alternative history, Babbage completes his analytic engine – the sequel to the difference engine – and ushers the computer age in Great Britain in the mid 1800s.

The novel limits itself to a mechanical revolution – the transistor does not exist yet in this universe, and instead of having machines built around the integrated circuit, mechanical steam powered machines become commonplace. The technology that comes to Great Britain is steampunk in design. For example, there are steam powered carriages and televisions called Kinotropes. While a little suspension of disbelief is required to believe that steam is an adequate power source and that these technologies are actually possible, the world they create is very interesting to me. I’m personally very biased towards scientific research and development. If I could rule the world I would move entire economies to produce technologies in every field full time. I’ve always wondered what would happen if humanities focus shifted purely to the pursuit and development of knowledge, and I believe that great wonders would be produced in no time. This novel explores some lines of my fantasy in that Britain begins to turn towards science and hold scientific figures like Charles Darwin in high light. Other studies are pushed aside and science and technology are put at the forefront. As a result, technological progress proceeds at a breakneck speed as “modern” devices appear and globalization looms.