Technology and Catastrophism: an Analyss of Necessity and Contingency in William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s "The Difference Engine"
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30827/impossibilia.252023.26935Keywords:
William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, La máquina diferencial, ucronía, causalidad, necesidad y contingencia.Abstract
If there is something that has characterized most of the studies on alternate history works over the last decades, is the lack of consensus regarding its true nature, making it difficult for scholars to find a proper definition of the literary genre. In 2013, Kathleen Single releases her book Alternate History: Playing with Necessity and Contingency, in which she suggests a defining feature of alternate histories: the contemplation of the paradoxical notions of necessity and contingency. Consequently, the main purpose of this article is to showcase the various ways in which the William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s novel The Difference Engine (1990) manifests this feature, thus proving that Singles’ claim is a valuable contribution to the field of alternate history studies.
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