Ian's Reviews > The Difference Engine

I give this two stars because I quite enjoyed the first 50 pages or so. Then it was crap from there on out. (Well, I assume the rest was crap, as I only read another 50 pages of pointless drivel before deciding not to waste any more of my precious time.) It was odd. The first 50 pages formed a reasonably complete, self-contained, and satisfying short story. I don't think those pages were intended to be that way, but they were. Then another chapter started with totally different characters that had nothing obvious to do with the first portion. Now, that sort of structure by itself is not so uncommon and I enjoy many a book that sport that very look. It seems likely that the two stories were intended to intersect someplace down the line. But the first portion--the satisfying complete story--appeared to be over. That is, it reached a plausible and satisfying conclusion. So I couldn't see it intersecting with anything later on. And the other odd thing about this book is that the first portion was well written, while after that it just sucked balls--and not even big hairy ones, just boring and pointless ones. I believe the book has two co-authors and I wonder if one of them is decent and the other one, well, he just sucks balls. But I don't know which is which.