“Gibson and Sterling tackle their Dickensian dystopia with verve and aplomb, lifting current issues into a vastly different social and ethical matrix. Their gaslight-and-computers world is both plausible and eerie.”
—LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
“Smartly plotted, wonderfully crafted, and written with sly literary wit … spins marvelously and runs like a dream.”
—ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
“Offers many pleasures for the reader to unpack and examine. Highly readable as an alternate-historical romp, it moves in its closing chapters to a brooding meditation upon history and consciousness, and hints at a further level of significance that the reader will be some time in pondering.”
—NEW YORK NEWSDAY
“Enormously entertaining.”
—THE BOSTON PHOENIX
“Demands a second reading that I’m in the midst of—and enjoying.”
—SAN DIEGO TRIBUNE
“Intelligent … with a light touch … [a] mixture of real and imagined history, worked up into a ripping adventure yarn.”
—LOS ANGELES TIMES
“[A] tour-de-force adventure … the book resembles Babbage’s marvelous machines: the story spins on gears and uncoils like springs.”
—PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
“A peculiar and fascinating twist to history … a fascinating historical treasure hunt … follows the cyberpunk tradition.”
—SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
“An alternate 19th century where the computer revolution has arrived early to create a hybrid society, half modern, half traditional, where Victorians must cope with the effects of future shock a few generations early … ingeniously designed and depicted.”
—LOCUS
“A crackling-good spy story.… It’s a joy to find a book in which the words shine as brightly as the premise.”
—SEATTLE TIMES
“Splendidly extraordinary.… It is stimulating to have one’s intelligence overestimated by such brilliant writers.”
—THE SUNDAY TIMES (LONDON)
“An erudite but snappy Victorian techno-thriller.”
—GLAMOUR
“A visionary steam-powered heavy metal fantasy! Gibson and Sterling create a high Victorian virtual reality of extraordinary richness and detail.”
—RIDLEY SCOTT, director of Blade Runner and Black Rain
“I read it with great pleasure. There’s a Victorian-like love of science and technology in the air these days, and an information-driven revolution in human affairs in progress. Gibson and Sterling show how deep the revolution will be by mapping it wittily and realistically onto a known past.”
—STEWART BRAND, creator of The Whole Earth Catalog