A masterpiece of alternative history, the cornerstone of the steampunk subculture (“steam punk”), the only example of full-fledged co-creation of two genre revolutionaries, for whom the boundaries of any genre are cramped. “The Difference Machine” is a large-scale, polyphonic panorama of the world, in which, simultaneously with the industrial revolution, the information revolution occurred, so that the computer appeared a century earlier than expected. A world in which Charles Babbage built his difference engine, and the radical lords led by Byron seized power from the aristocracy. A world in which catastrophist paleontologists bitterly argue with uniformitarians, a commune led by Karl Marx has taken power in New York, computing power is measured by the total mesh length of copper gears, London is threatened with environmental disaster, and Luddite rioters provide conspiracy theorists with plenty of food for thought...