The Difference Engine
E929003
The Difference Engine is a 1990 steampunk alternate-history novel, co-written by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, that imagines a Victorian Britain transformed by early computer technology.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Difference Engine canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11492776 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Difference Engine Context triple: [Bruce Sterling, notableWork, The Difference Engine]
-
A.
The Machine of the World
The Machine of the World is a famous allegorical vision in Luís de Camões’ epic poem *Os Lusíadas*, in which the cosmos and its secrets are revealed to the Portuguese explorers.
-
B.
The Machine
The Machine is the nickname of Albert Pujols, a Dominican-American former Major League Baseball first baseman renowned for his remarkably consistent and powerful hitting.
-
C.
The Machine
The Machine is a powerful, clandestine artificial superintelligence from the TV series "Person of Interest" that predicts violent crimes by analyzing global surveillance data.
-
D.
Corpus Colossus
Corpus Colossus is a character in the Mad Max universe, known as one of the physically imposing and grotesquely deformed sons within Immortan Joe’s tyrannical post-apocalyptic family.
-
E.
Engines of Logic
Engines of Logic is a book by mathematician and computer scientist Martin Davis that explores the historical development of mathematical logic and its foundational role in the creation of modern computers.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Difference Engine Target entity description: The Difference Engine is a 1990 steampunk alternate-history novel, co-written by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, that imagines a Victorian Britain transformed by early computer technology.
-
A.
The Machine of the World
The Machine of the World is a famous allegorical vision in Luís de Camões’ epic poem *Os Lusíadas*, in which the cosmos and its secrets are revealed to the Portuguese explorers.
-
B.
The Machine
The Machine is the nickname of Albert Pujols, a Dominican-American former Major League Baseball first baseman renowned for his remarkably consistent and powerful hitting.
-
C.
The Machine
The Machine is a powerful, clandestine artificial superintelligence from the TV series "Person of Interest" that predicts violent crimes by analyzing global surveillance data.
-
D.
Corpus Colossus
Corpus Colossus is a character in the Mad Max universe, known as one of the physically imposing and grotesquely deformed sons within Immortan Joe’s tyrannical post-apocalyptic family.
-
E.
Engines of Logic
Engines of Logic is a book by mathematician and computer scientist Martin Davis that explores the historical development of mathematical logic and its foundational role in the creation of modern computers.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
alternate history novel
ⓘ
novel ⓘ science fiction novel ⓘ steampunk novel ⓘ |
| author |
Bruce Sterling
ⓘ
William Gibson ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
early computer technology
ⓘ
industrialization ⓘ social change ⓘ surveillance ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| depictsTechnology |
analytical engines
ⓘ
difference engines ⓘ |
| exploresConcept |
information control
ⓘ
political power of technology ⓘ |
| featuresFictionalizedVersionOf |
Ada Lovelace
ⓘ
Charles Babbage ⓘ Lord Byron ⓘ |
| firstEditionFormat | hardcover ⓘ |
| genre |
alternate history
ⓘ
science fiction ⓘ steampunk ⓘ |
| hasCharacterType |
politicians
ⓘ
revolutionaries ⓘ scientists ⓘ spies ⓘ |
| hasInfluenced | steampunk genre ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 9780553294613 ⓘ |
| hasLiteraryMovement | cyberpunk-adjacent ⓘ |
| hasNarrativePerspective | third-person narration ⓘ |
| hasPageCount | ~400 ⓘ |
| hasSettingElement |
Luddite resistance
ⓘ
industrial megacity ⓘ technocratic elite ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| narrativeForm | prose ⓘ |
| notableFor |
detailed alternate history of Victorian Britain
ⓘ
early popularization of steampunk aesthetics ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| publicationDate | 1990 ⓘ |
| publisher |
Bantam Books
ⓘ
Victor Gollancz Ltd ⓘ |
| setInCity |
London
ⓘ
linked to:
London, England
|
| setInCountry | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| setInPeriod | Victorian era ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Difference Engine Description of subject: The Difference Engine is a 1990 steampunk alternate-history novel, co-written by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, that imagines a Victorian Britain transformed by early computer technology.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.