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The Difference Engine
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
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The Difference Engine is an alternate history novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. It is a prime example of the steampunk sub-genre; It posits a Victorian Britain in which great technological and social change has occurred after entrepreneurial inventor Charles Babbage succeeded in his ambition to build a mechanical computer called Engines.
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By: Maureen Jennings
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Jack Maggs
- By: Peter Carey
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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With scars on his back and silver in his pocket, the huge figure of Jack Maggs strides across the rich landscape of 19th century London. As this enigmatic man moves through its streets and houses, his single-minded quest to find his son will engender love, deceit, and vengeance in the lives around him.
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Jack Maggs
- By Kathleen on 04-04-05
By: Peter Carey
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What Angels Fear
- Sebastian St. Cyr, Book 1
- By: C. S. Harris
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1811, and the threat of revolution haunts the upper classes of King George III's England. Then a beautiful young woman is found savagely murdered on the altar steps of an ancient church near Westminster Abbey. A dueling pistol found at the scene and the damning testimony of a witness both point to one man - Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, a brilliant young nobleman shattered by his experience in the Napoleonic Wars.
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An Addictive Series
- By Bibliophile1963 on 10-17-16
By: C. S. Harris
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The Diabolical Miss Hyde
- Electric Empire Series #1
- By: Viola Carr
- Narrated by: Beverley A. Crick
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In an electrified Victorian London, Dr. Eliza Jekyll is a crime scene investigator, hunting killers with newfangled technological gadgets. She will need every advantage available to catch a terrifying new psychopath splattering London with blood. Hidden in the grimy shadows, the fiendish murderer preys on beautiful women, drugging them before slicing off their limbs. Finding the "Slicer" can make Eliza's career...or unmask her darkest secret.
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Surprising Gem from newer author
- By Michalena on 12-06-16
By: Viola Carr
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Six of Crows
- By: Leigh Bardugo
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder, Brandon Rubin, Fred Berman, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price - and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone.
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7 Narrators, But That's Not a Good Thing
- By KM on 03-18-16
By: Leigh Bardugo
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A Most Extraordinary Pursuit
- By: Juliana Gray
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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February, 1906. As the personal secretary of the recently departed duke of Olympia - and a woman of scrupulous character - Miss Emmeline Rose Truelove never expected her duties to involve steaming through the Mediterranean on a private yacht, under the prodigal eye of one Lord Silverton, the most charmingly corrupt bachelor in London. But here they are, improperly bound on a quest to find the duke's enigmatic heir, current whereabouts unknown. Maximilian Haywood was last seen at an archaeological dig on the island of Crete.
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This Book Would Have Been A Hot Mess...
- By Alexis on 10-06-16
By: Juliana Gray
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The Colour of Magic
- Discworld, Book 1
- By: Terry Pratchett
- Narrated by: Colin Morgan, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place that might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Particularly as it’s carried though space on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown). It plays by different rules. But then, some things are the same everywhere. The Disc’s very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the world’s first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land.
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TERRIBLE Narration!
- By Kayla I on 07-08-22
By: Terry Pratchett
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Hide Me Among the Graves
- By: Tim Powers
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham
- Length: 17 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Winter 1862, London. Adelaide McKee, a former prostitute, arrives on the doorstep of veterinarian John Crawford, a man she met once seven years earlier. Their brief meeting produced a child who, until now, had been presumed dead. McKee has learned that the girl lives - but that her life and soul are in mortal peril from a vampiric ghost. But this is no ordinary spirit; the bloodthirsty wraith is none other than John Polidori, the onetime physician to the mad, bad, and dangerous Romantic poet Lord Byron.
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One More Mortal Sin
- By Dave on 01-31-14
By: Tim Powers
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The narrator made me turn this off in 10 seconds
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Only gets better with age
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Story? Classic. Narrator? Ugh.
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The narrator made me turn this off in 10 seconds
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Story? Classic. Narrator? Ugh.
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Bruce said this audiobook would never happen.
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Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran's benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC's elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there's a job he's supposed to do - a job Flynne didn't know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her.
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Worst Narration Ever
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Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
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Imagine an alternate universe where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and recraft a world of automatons, ornate clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, and intrepid orphans - decked out in corsets, clockwerk suits, and tall black boots - solve dastardly crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships.
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The rock could use a bit more polishing
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Bad first novel by great writer
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Khaim, The Blue City, is the last remaining city in a crumbled empire that overly relied upon magic until it became toxic. It is run by a tyrant known as The Jolly Mayor and his devious right hand, the last archmage in the world. Together they try to collect all the magic for themselves so they can control the citizens of the city. But when their decadence reaches new heights and begins to destroy the environment, the people stage an uprising to stop them.
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Repeat of Alchemist with Unsatisfying Additions
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Stand on Zanzibar
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Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically - it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him. Society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers and mass-marketed psychedelic drugs.
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perfect audio experience
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In this now-classic thriller, he and fellow author J. Frederick George tell a shocking tale with an all-too plausible premise. There's no way William A. Cozzano can lose the upcoming presidential election. He's a likable midwestern governor with one insidious advantage - an advantage provided by a shadowy group of backers.
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Interface
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What listeners say about The Difference Engine
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Delano
- 04-22-13
Starts strong, falls off
First of all, Simon Vance does an amazing job with this book. All kinds of British accents, and he nails each of them. The perfect ideal of expressiveness without melodrama from start to finish. So this is what a professional sounds like. If only I could get serious nonfiction books narrated with this level of talent.
The novel: written by two people, and it shows. It gives the impression that they worked together for a while, agreed to work separately on the rest, and then both mailed in half-baked work when they ran out of time. The first 1/3 is absolutely gripping and fascinating. The next 1/3 is a mediocre action story climaxing with a gunfight in a burning warehouse (the ultimate action cliche). The last 1/3 is told as a series of disjointed fragments revealing large chunks of leftover plot, as though the writer didn't have time to weave them together to give pacing and complexity.
I felt the book was worth my time, but ended up mourning the much better novel that could have been if the high standard of the first section had been kept up.
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26 people found this helpful
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- Donna
- 03-28-13
Simon Vance is excellent as always, Gibson not so
The performance of this story is first rate, the story however I think tries too hard to include every notable figure of the era and in doing so loses something in pacing and structure.
Still a story worth listening too, just not first rate.
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9 people found this helpful
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- David S. Mathew
- 02-03-18
Steampunk Neuromancer
Combining the cyberpunk, steampunk, and alternate history sub-generas of science fiction, The Difference Engine is truly a one of a kind novel. The basic premise: What if computers were created in Victorian England? The results is a vastly different and far grimmer world where the Imperial British Empire extends its rule across the entire world and well into the future... at least until the last few pages.
Regarding the plot, it’s worth warning you that this novel has a reputation for being often picked up, but seldom finished. That is because it’s a pretty complex read already, made more difficult by a noir detective plot that’s kind of all over the place. That said, I finished it and if you can make it to the ending there is a twist that explains why the story was told that way. Also, for what it’s worth, you get a lot more out of this a second time around.
As for the narration, this is definitely easier to listen to than it is to read. Simon Vance is one of my favorite narrators, so I’m biased towards any performance of his. That said, this is an extremely verbose novel with some fairly dense sections to it; and Vance still nails it. Overall, if I’ve at all piqued your interest give The Difference Engine a whirl. You’re in for quite the ride.
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8 people found this helpful
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- J. Hand
- 03-05-15
I expected something different
Maybe I'm not versed enough in steam punk culture and missed the point here. I expected somthing more along the lines of science fiction except steam driven devices and strange machinery. There was a smidgeon of that often as a quick backdrop and at times almost an afterthought. Instead I got a tale of social upheaval, historical receation of sorts, anti-communist essay, a very involved and complex mystery all intertwined with actual historical people served in a name dropping fashion. I never really did get the points of many character backgrounds and how they fit into the larger story. They last parts seemed an attempt to tie it all together that was brilliant in some spots, clumsy in others.
The audio was appropriately accented but at times was paced so quickly that I had to slow it down to understand it. This also required replays in many places to hear what was being said. Because there's a lot of period London/British vernacular I had to keep accessing a dictionary to know what a number of words meant. I don't mind that and it wasn't as frequent a need as William Shrier's books.
It was still not a bad tale but I still feel somewhat cheated because I thought it was going to be something other than what it proved to be. Maybe a film presentation would have had background scenery and effects that would have conveyed the steam age better as in the great animated feature "Steam Boy", but it didn't come through at all in the story. In fact, pull the couple steam vehicles, replace the 'engines' with mathematicians, add a few other minor tweaks and this is simply another novel set in the 1800s.
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4 people found this helpful
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- wendy
- 10-03-11
Great Story!
William Gibson & Bruce Sterling are both fantastic authors & together they wrote a really great story!
Excellent listen - highly recommended.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Jason Kaechler
- 04-02-14
Not all that good
Would you try another book from William Gibson and Bruce Sterling and/or Simon Vance?
I have read (listened to) some other Gibson books, and I quite liked them. However, this one was difficult to get thru, hard to follow the storyline, and in the end the storyline seemed to be completely useless. Not gripping at all.
The readed did do a good job, it is just the story that didnt....
Has The Difference Engine turned you off from other books in this genre?
Probly not
What does Simon Vance bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Good characterization
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
A Nap
Any additional comments?
Don't.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Josh Downes
- 02-20-19
Not Gibson's Best
I've been a huge fan of William Gibson's science fiction works for many years, particularly the Sprawl trilogy. While Difference Engine is an intriguing and entertaining alternate history thriller, I'm afraid I can't recommend it for fans of Gibson's other work. I found myself intrigued by descriptions of technology and "clackers", this world's equivalent of programmers, but the technological divergences in the world of Difference Engine quickly took a backseat to human drama that had little to nothing to do with the alternately advanced technological landscape (at least by my reckoning). Well written and fantastically delivered by Simon Vance, but unfortunately I was disappointed by my own misplaced expectations.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Gerald Andrew Taylor
- 05-29-15
Almost unlistenable
The narrator was actually quite good, and the story had an interesting premise, but the dialogue was so heavy-handed with 19th century jargon that it completely detracted from the story. It got to the point that it was completely unenjoyable.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Joel P. Schmaling
- 01-10-12
Plodding, boring, hard to follow...
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
I always enjoy Simon Vance as reader, unfortunately the story didn't match his talents.
Any additional comments?
For me, this book was a waste of a credit.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
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- Tal M. Klein
- 07-19-20
Steampunk before steampunk was cool
One of my favorite novels performed impeccably. Worth a listen and relisten! Sterling and Gibson’s opus.
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