SOURCE: Sladek, John. “A Byte Out of Time.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (12 May 1991): 9.

In the following review, Sladek describes Gibson's The Difference Engine as an intelligent novel that addresses serious themes but is also fun to read.

What if the Victorians had built computers—huge, mechanical contraptions based on the calculating engines of Charles Babbage? What if the Information Age had arrived a full century ahead of schedule?

Such is the alternative world of The Difference Engine. It's a tempting alternative, given that the historical Charles Babbage really was the high-tech genius of his age. The “Difference Engines” he actually built were large, complex calculators, well ahead of their time. But Babbage also planned another type of engine, far more ambitious, containing all the elements of a modern digital computer. It even used punched cards, an idea Babbage borrowed from the Jacquard loom. More to the point...