A unique take on the unrealized invention of the computer in the 1830s by the eccentric polymath Charles Babbage and his accomplice, the daughter of Lord Byron, Ada, Countess of Lovelace. When Ada translated her friend Babbage's plans for the "Difference Engine," her lengthy footnotes contained the first appearance of the general computing theory—one hundred years before an actual computer was built. Sadly, Lovelace died of cancer a few years after publishing the paper, and Babbage never built any of his machines. But now Sydney Padua gives us an alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine, and then use it to do battle with the American banking system, the publishing industry, their own fears that their project will lose funding, and a villainous street musician who will force the two friends to reevaluate their priorities—"for the sake of both London and science."
When I heard about this I was super excited, I love anything Victorian and these two people seem to have such character. When I got it the excitement continued, this book is so gorgeous! Its a naked hardback with a cloth bound spine and the illustrations are awesome! I read this during round 5 of #RYBSAT and it was a nice quick read for that kind of thing. For me there were basically two parts to this book- the graphic novel part and then the informative, math part. Sometimes they mixed but those were the aspects.
I really enjoyed the graphic novel part, it was very amusing, the art as I said was really good. Lovelace and Babbage as well as the other characters were so alive and vivid. I really enjoyed the little "guest stars" in this- Queen Victoria, the Duke of Wellington, Dickens, Florence Nightingale, Marian Evans (George Eliot), Elizabeth Gaskell even Jane Austen. It was full of these big figures with their quirks :) I really like how though I learnt a lot but when it came to the story it was all fun it was a good balance.
The "informative" aspect was mainly through gigantic footnotes, endnotes and then the Appendix at the end of the book. I found it all interesting but I have to admit that a lot of maths and science went over my head, i think I grasp a fair amount but far from all of it. Another thing that I struggled with when it came to this part was the layout. A couple of times the pictures went into the writing but then main problem I had was that the footnotes weren't a normal two or three lines it could be an entire page in this tiny, tiny font making it very hard to read. Also at first I got very confused how to read it there were numbers and references to the appendix but I didn't know where they were but in the end I just went page by page and ignored that the footnotes have footnotes themselves.
Overall it was enjoyable and I found it very interesting even though it was more complex than I expected in places. I loved the graphic novel side and in then it was a fun read that I gave 3 stars.
Speak soon,
Jade
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