Two Americans writing a novel about 19th century England. So much Victorian slang that you'd need Websters and Wikipedia on quick dial. It is like they purposely chose all the obscure words that are not used for one and a half century now. When you look up the words they use in Websters, almost always there would be a note next to it of "obsolete", "archaic" and "dated". Of course, they want you to feel authentic in their invented world, but it makes for extremely tedious and burdensome reading. Definitely not a "light reading".
And what's up with naming every single street in downtown London? I really don't want to know which street Mallory or Oliphant turned into, crossed to, made a turn onto. Who cares? It doesn't make it authentic - I can open Google maps and look them up, but why? It is just unnecessary detail that doesn't add to the story or experience at all. I've been to London many times, and never paid attention to any of the street names.
The parts with Sybil Gerrard are the best parts of the book, and I bet Gibson wrote them. The parts with Timothy Oliphant are the worst parts of the book and I bet Sterling wrote them. They exchanged floppy disks between themselves, writing from Vancouver and Austin.
This is the "original" Steampunk novel, although the authors never intended it so. There is lots of "engines" and "ordinateurs", basically early computers run on steam according to the ideas of Charles Babbage. In the real world Babbage never constructed his machine. In this alternate world he did, and made England superpower who intervened in the American Civil war and kept the North and the South (and Texas) from uniting, so North America is in a perpetual state of warfare, with thousands American refugees streaming into Europe.
There is lots of brass and wooden handles, and spinning cogs and wheels, however at the end of the day, the book is more of a novelty than real literature.
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