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A review by skfritz
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua
3.0
This book has a super awesome concept, which is that Babbage and Lovelace, two of the pioneers for our modern computing movement, go on crazy adventures together using their crazy complicated huge analytical machine. The artwork is adorably fun, there's cameos by all sorts of famous Victorian sorts (Queen Victoria herself, Charles Dickens, Mary Evans (aka George Eliot), the Duke of Wellington, etc.), and it's really informative.
Kind of too informative?
There are a lot of footnotes and endnotes in this book. A LOT. It's not often when you can simply read the story for more than a page and a half without having to stop to read the annotation at the bottom, which often clarifies what the author means, or explains where she got the information she's using in the text. The last section of the book is appendices explaining the math and science behind Lovelace and Babbage's work, with no actual storyline. I think this book would be a lot for appealing and accessible for someone who is interested in math and science or has a general background in it, but I am not that person.
So, for all that the concept was great and the art eye-catching, this book just didn't quite hold my attention in the way I hoped it might. However, I have to say, the 'Clippy' footman and the delightful Mary Evans/George Eliot made me so glad I read this anyway.
Kind of too informative?
There are a lot of footnotes and endnotes in this book. A LOT. It's not often when you can simply read the story for more than a page and a half without having to stop to read the annotation at the bottom, which often clarifies what the author means, or explains where she got the information she's using in the text. The last section of the book is appendices explaining the math and science behind Lovelace and Babbage's work, with no actual storyline. I think this book would be a lot for appealing and accessible for someone who is interested in math and science or has a general background in it, but I am not that person.
So, for all that the concept was great and the art eye-catching, this book just didn't quite hold my attention in the way I hoped it might. However, I have to say, the 'Clippy' footman and the delightful Mary Evans/George Eliot made me so glad I read this anyway.