Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Pantheon (2015), Edition: First Edition, 320 pages
Description
Meet Victorian London's most dynamic duo: Charles Babbage, the unrealized inventor of the computer, and his accomplice, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the peculiar protoprogrammer and daughter of Lord Byron. When Lovelace translated a description of Babbage's plans for an enormous mechanical calculating machine in 1842, she added annotations three times longer than the original work. Her footnotes contained the first appearance of the general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. Sadly, Lovelace died of cancer a decade after publishing the paper, and Babbage never built any of his machines. But do not despair! The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage presents a rollicking alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine and then use it to build runaway economic models, battle the scourge of spelling errors, explore the wilder realms of mathematics, and, of course, fight crime -- for the sake of both London and science. Complete with extensive footnotes that rival those penned by Lovelace herself, historical curiosities, and never-before-seen diagrams of Babbage's mechanical, steam-powered computer.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Larou
I think in every single post I have ever done on comics I have mentioned that I’m not really all that much into comics… with the occasional exception. As can be expected from that, I’m not an avid reader of web comics either: There’s the occasional visit to xkcd or Oglaf, but that is pretty
This is one of those books where it is hard (if not impossible) to imagine anyone not loving it. The author’s immense enthusiasm for his subjects and his characters shines through on every single page of this volume and transmits itself to the reader thanks to the wonderful drawings, the stunning inventiveness and the catching humour with which Sydney Padua tells her stories. While these are not quite the historical Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace but alternative version who live in a pocket universe where the Analytical Engine was actually build, the author obviously loves her research and has dug up a huge amount of actual, real information, ranging from the fascinating to know to entertaining anecdotes to the outright bizarre, and she pours out this cornucopia of facts in a wealth of footnotes, end notes to the footnotes and footnotes to the end notes of the footnotes.
For anyone familiar with the web comic this is a very close and nice approximation of all the links to Google Documents Padua likes to sprinkle across her pages (and of course there are footnotes there, too) and while not quite as extensive, bookish footnotes have of course the advantage of being more period-appropriate. Another difference to the web version of Lovelace and Babbage is that (at least to my untrained eye) she seems to have re-worked the graphics – on the web site you can follow the evolution of the author’s drawing style and see her control of and playfulness with the medium grow from comic to comic. The book on the other hand presents the (current) peak of her craft and is much more unified; it also contains a new story not on the website featuring Ada in Wonderland. Both “Organised Crime” and “Vampire Poets” are not in the books though – but one can hope for a future volume.
Anyone not familiar with the web comic is in for the even bigger treat of encountering Lovelace and Babbage for the first time and experience the unfettered glee of seeing a historic injustice righted, our intrepid heroes rewarded with the appreciation they deserve while they use the powers of the Analytical Engine to fight crime in an almost-historical Victorian London. On the way, you will meet many of their contemporaries like you’ve never seen them before, from William Gladstone to George Eliot, from Queen Victoria to that irresistible sex symbol Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and much loud laughter, astonished gasps and delighted squees are bound to ensue. It is not all fun and chortles, though – Sidney Padua never lets the reader forget that it is alternative history she is drawing and that things did not work out that well for her protagonists in our version of history. Thus, she keeps a faint but steady current of melancholy running underneath her merry tale but at the same time always keeps their very real achievements in view, turning the comic into an homage to the indomitable spirit of discovery and invention (and quirky character traits). At the very least, do check out the website but I really cannot recommend this book strongly enough.
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much it – except, that is, for the single web comic I have been following religiously ever since discovering it (which fortunately happened quite early in its history), namely Sydney Padua’s The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage.This is one of those books where it is hard (if not impossible) to imagine anyone not loving it. The author’s immense enthusiasm for his subjects and his characters shines through on every single page of this volume and transmits itself to the reader thanks to the wonderful drawings, the stunning inventiveness and the catching humour with which Sydney Padua tells her stories. While these are not quite the historical Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace but alternative version who live in a pocket universe where the Analytical Engine was actually build, the author obviously loves her research and has dug up a huge amount of actual, real information, ranging from the fascinating to know to entertaining anecdotes to the outright bizarre, and she pours out this cornucopia of facts in a wealth of footnotes, end notes to the footnotes and footnotes to the end notes of the footnotes.
For anyone familiar with the web comic this is a very close and nice approximation of all the links to Google Documents Padua likes to sprinkle across her pages (and of course there are footnotes there, too) and while not quite as extensive, bookish footnotes have of course the advantage of being more period-appropriate. Another difference to the web version of Lovelace and Babbage is that (at least to my untrained eye) she seems to have re-worked the graphics – on the web site you can follow the evolution of the author’s drawing style and see her control of and playfulness with the medium grow from comic to comic. The book on the other hand presents the (current) peak of her craft and is much more unified; it also contains a new story not on the website featuring Ada in Wonderland. Both “Organised Crime” and “Vampire Poets” are not in the books though – but one can hope for a future volume.
Anyone not familiar with the web comic is in for the even bigger treat of encountering Lovelace and Babbage for the first time and experience the unfettered glee of seeing a historic injustice righted, our intrepid heroes rewarded with the appreciation they deserve while they use the powers of the Analytical Engine to fight crime in an almost-historical Victorian London. On the way, you will meet many of their contemporaries like you’ve never seen them before, from William Gladstone to George Eliot, from Queen Victoria to that irresistible sex symbol Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and much loud laughter, astonished gasps and delighted squees are bound to ensue. It is not all fun and chortles, though – Sidney Padua never lets the reader forget that it is alternative history she is drawing and that things did not work out that well for her protagonists in our version of history. Thus, she keeps a faint but steady current of melancholy running underneath her merry tale but at the same time always keeps their very real achievements in view, turning the comic into an homage to the indomitable spirit of discovery and invention (and quirky character traits). At the very least, do check out the website but I really cannot recommend this book strongly enough.
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LibraryThing member weird_O
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua
The subtitle of this graphic novel is "The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer." The novel's creator, [[Sydney Padua]], manipulates the actual interactions of 19th century math prodigy Ada, Countess of Lovelace and eccentric
Babbage's Analytical Engine is central. Babbage designed a mechanical device, powered by a hand crank, with gears and shafts to calculate and print logorithmic tables. This he called the Difference Engine. A kind of test module was all that Babbage ever built, in part because he got a better idea: a much much larger and more complex machine with greater capabilities. He called that the Analytical Engine, and he didn't get that built either. He was fine-tuning his plans for it up until he died in 1871.
Ada, the Countess of Lovelace, you'll learn on the first page or two, was the daughter of poet Lord Byron. She was a math wiz, but also, as befits the spawn of Byron, a bit of a nutcase. She was 18 when she met the 42-year-old Babbage. Although a few experts dispute the claim, Lovelace is often cited as the person who wrote the first computer program. Padua, needless to say, makes a great deal of their association.
Padua conjures an alternative universe—Is this de rigueur in this type of publication?—so she can imagine that the Analytical Engine actually is built. She portrays it as a mammoth and deafening conglomeration of cogwheels, towering stacks of gears, shafts, levers, toggles, gauges, pipes, valves, pumps, tubes, switches, and endless belts of punched cards, housed in a Victorian warehouse of parallel corridors overhung by a web of catwalks suspended from skyhooks, linked by spiralling and Escherian stairways, all converging to a vanishing point shrouded in shadow and steam clouds. Superintending this mysterious, clicking, clanking, hissing, yes, even frightening, industrial-seeming behemoth—always just on the thin edge of control—is Ada Lovelace. Oh, not the frail Victorian Countess of Lovelace, but steely-eyed Ada, standing tall, clay pipe clamped in her teeth, garbed in Jodphurs, riding boots, and close-fitting tunic.
In an appendix, Padua does a remarkable job of transferring Babbage's 2-D engineering drawings of his machine into perspective views, to elucidate its operation. I can't say I grasp it entirely, but her presentation is fascinating.
In the short term, it all came to naught. Lovelace descended into periods of madness and died at 36 in 1852. Babbage rumbled on until his death in 1871, his Engines never built. But in the long term, Babbage is popularly recognized as the first computer designer, Lovelace as the first programmer. The book is novel, entertaining, and pretty informative.
The subtitle of this graphic novel is "The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer." The novel's creator, [[Sydney Padua]], manipulates the actual interactions of 19th century math prodigy Ada, Countess of Lovelace and eccentric
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genius Charles Babbage, so she can present and explain the workings of Babbage's Analytical Engine. She presents most of the story in comic strip format, taking liberties throughout to make an abstract (even abstruse) subject entertaining and, mostly, understandable. Notables of the Victorian Age—Queen Victoria herself, the Duke of Wellington, Marian Evans (bka George Eliot), Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dodgson (bka Lewis Carroll)—pass in and out of the narrative. Witty footnotes document the factual bases of situations, individuals, meetings, assertions, so the book isn't all comic strip. Yes, there actually are pages of text to read.Babbage's Analytical Engine is central. Babbage designed a mechanical device, powered by a hand crank, with gears and shafts to calculate and print logorithmic tables. This he called the Difference Engine. A kind of test module was all that Babbage ever built, in part because he got a better idea: a much much larger and more complex machine with greater capabilities. He called that the Analytical Engine, and he didn't get that built either. He was fine-tuning his plans for it up until he died in 1871.
Ada, the Countess of Lovelace, you'll learn on the first page or two, was the daughter of poet Lord Byron. She was a math wiz, but also, as befits the spawn of Byron, a bit of a nutcase. She was 18 when she met the 42-year-old Babbage. Although a few experts dispute the claim, Lovelace is often cited as the person who wrote the first computer program. Padua, needless to say, makes a great deal of their association.
Padua conjures an alternative universe—Is this de rigueur in this type of publication?—so she can imagine that the Analytical Engine actually is built. She portrays it as a mammoth and deafening conglomeration of cogwheels, towering stacks of gears, shafts, levers, toggles, gauges, pipes, valves, pumps, tubes, switches, and endless belts of punched cards, housed in a Victorian warehouse of parallel corridors overhung by a web of catwalks suspended from skyhooks, linked by spiralling and Escherian stairways, all converging to a vanishing point shrouded in shadow and steam clouds. Superintending this mysterious, clicking, clanking, hissing, yes, even frightening, industrial-seeming behemoth—always just on the thin edge of control—is Ada Lovelace. Oh, not the frail Victorian Countess of Lovelace, but steely-eyed Ada, standing tall, clay pipe clamped in her teeth, garbed in Jodphurs, riding boots, and close-fitting tunic.
In an appendix, Padua does a remarkable job of transferring Babbage's 2-D engineering drawings of his machine into perspective views, to elucidate its operation. I can't say I grasp it entirely, but her presentation is fascinating.
In the short term, it all came to naught. Lovelace descended into periods of madness and died at 36 in 1852. Babbage rumbled on until his death in 1871, his Engines never built. But in the long term, Babbage is popularly recognized as the first computer designer, Lovelace as the first programmer. The book is novel, entertaining, and pretty informative.
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LibraryThing member agarcia85257
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua is an irreverent and quirky view of what could have been the most outstanding scientific collaboration that didn't happen. Padua tells her tale in a graphic comic format with artwork
Charles Babbage is Victorian London's unrecognized inventor of what would become the modern day computer with his plans for a monstrous mechanical calculating machine. Ada Lovelace is the Countess of Lovelace and daughter of the mad and brilliant poet, Lord Byron. Ada Lovelace translates a description of Babbage's calculating machine with annotations that were three times longer than the original plans. These footnotes from Lovelace actually contain the first known general computing theory, a century before the first actual computer was built! Unfortunately Lovelace passed away before her paper was ever published and Babbage never built his brilliant machine.
Sydney Padua creates an alternate reality where Lovelace and Babbage create their awesome calculating machine. A behemoth that grows and grows in steam powered engines, and gears, and analytics, and doo dads and just freakin' awesome stuff. They will open up and explore the wild and untamed dimensions of mathematics! They will create economic models to stave off depressions! The will battle the demons of spelling errors! And for the Queen herself, create dot matrix kittens!
Tongue in cheek perhaps, totally geeky surely, but fun all the same. Original. Thought provoking. Full of "what if" and untapped potential. In Babbage, the blustering scientist whose uncompromising and attitude make him a social pariah, Padua has developed a character whose brilliance makes him an outsider to a society he frowns upon but needs to continue his work. In Lovelace, the pre-feminist in Victorian society whose love of mathematics is only rivaled by her fear and disdain for poetry and the arts. Poetry which is in too many ways her opium, her drug, her weakness as she abhors the immoral ways of her father. Together they could have accomplished the unthinkable and in The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, they do. Granted by happenstance at times but isn't half the fun?
A terrific read!
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reminiscent of early turn of the century (the 1900s) political cartoons. Its fun! Its awesome! Its over indulgent cheesecake for the geek universe!Charles Babbage is Victorian London's unrecognized inventor of what would become the modern day computer with his plans for a monstrous mechanical calculating machine. Ada Lovelace is the Countess of Lovelace and daughter of the mad and brilliant poet, Lord Byron. Ada Lovelace translates a description of Babbage's calculating machine with annotations that were three times longer than the original plans. These footnotes from Lovelace actually contain the first known general computing theory, a century before the first actual computer was built! Unfortunately Lovelace passed away before her paper was ever published and Babbage never built his brilliant machine.
Sydney Padua creates an alternate reality where Lovelace and Babbage create their awesome calculating machine. A behemoth that grows and grows in steam powered engines, and gears, and analytics, and doo dads and just freakin' awesome stuff. They will open up and explore the wild and untamed dimensions of mathematics! They will create economic models to stave off depressions! The will battle the demons of spelling errors! And for the Queen herself, create dot matrix kittens!
Tongue in cheek perhaps, totally geeky surely, but fun all the same. Original. Thought provoking. Full of "what if" and untapped potential. In Babbage, the blustering scientist whose uncompromising and attitude make him a social pariah, Padua has developed a character whose brilliance makes him an outsider to a society he frowns upon but needs to continue his work. In Lovelace, the pre-feminist in Victorian society whose love of mathematics is only rivaled by her fear and disdain for poetry and the arts. Poetry which is in too many ways her opium, her drug, her weakness as she abhors the immoral ways of her father. Together they could have accomplished the unthinkable and in The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, they do. Granted by happenstance at times but isn't half the fun?
A terrific read!
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LibraryThing member Vryce
The book spawned by the webcomic 2dgoggles. It probably qualifies as a comic book, but between the copious footnotes, endnotes, and primary source documents that doesn’t seem entirely correct.
I actually didn’t read this book for a long time after buying it, as I thought it would simply print
I highly suggest this book for anyone who wants to know a bit about Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, the Difference Engine, the Analytical Engine, or Victorian-era political cartoons. If you like steampunk this should be required reading – yes the fiction of Verne is important, but a bit of grounding in the crazy science fact of the day is not to be overlooked. But even if none of that is particularly interesting, the book is educational, funny, frequently laugh-out-loud-in-a-restaurant funny, and yet at times deeply bittersweet. It is a wonderfully worthwhile read.
I’m glad the website is still up, because there are several wonderful vignettes that didn’t make it into the book, but I am extremely happy to have this hard copy, and may just give copies to people I like.
Dear Sydney Padua, thank you for teaching me about Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
I actually didn’t read this book for a long time after buying it, as I thought it would simply print
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parts of the webcomic. Much to my surprise, the parts of the comic which had already appeared online were expanded and improved upon! Generally, when such a thing happens it is a letdown for someone who has read the original, but though a bit of the brisk comedy of the first form was gone, I really like the new versions. We learn so much more, and it is still absolutely in Padua’s brilliant style. I highly suggest this book for anyone who wants to know a bit about Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, the Difference Engine, the Analytical Engine, or Victorian-era political cartoons. If you like steampunk this should be required reading – yes the fiction of Verne is important, but a bit of grounding in the crazy science fact of the day is not to be overlooked. But even if none of that is particularly interesting, the book is educational, funny, frequently laugh-out-loud-in-a-restaurant funny, and yet at times deeply bittersweet. It is a wonderfully worthwhile read.
I’m glad the website is still up, because there are several wonderful vignettes that didn’t make it into the book, but I am extremely happy to have this hard copy, and may just give copies to people I like.
Dear Sydney Padua, thank you for teaching me about Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
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LibraryThing member porges
Very well researched, funny, ｐｒｉｍａｒｙ ｓｏｕｒｃｅｓ. Awesome!
LibraryThing member mahsdad
A fun graphic novel "loosely" based on the life and friendship of Ada Lovelace (more properly Ada Byron, Lovelace is her title, her husband was the Earl of Lovelace) and Charles Babbage. Babbage is credited as the father of the first mechanical computer (the Difference Engine) and the designer of
The speculation in this book is, what would happen if they had actually been able to build the Analytical Engine and write code to program the machine. This speculation happens in a pocket universe where Padua can let her imagination flow. This book had a very interesting structure. Its the first book where I needed 2 bookmarks. Each page of each chapter had footnotes that related to the action in the various panels. There were also endnotes that further clarified the footnotes, as well as several appendices of various period documents (letters and articles) that helped emphasis the story.
What both fascinates me and frustrates me is that I'm not sure what's true and what's fiction. Obviously the main story is fiction, but the footnotes and endnotes provide excellent historical backup, but in some cases, I think, "that can't be true, can it?". Its witty, self-deprecating and I thoroughly enjoyed it. While I knew of Babbage and Lovelace beforehand, this give me incentive to read more about them.
8/10
S: 1/21/15 - F: 2/8/16 (19 Days)
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the much more complex Analytical Engine (never built). Lovelace (who's father was the poet Lord Byron) was educated in mathematics and science from a very early age. She wrote (among other things) an analysis of the functioning and capabilities of the Analytical Engine, that contained was is regarded as the first computer program. The speculation in this book is, what would happen if they had actually been able to build the Analytical Engine and write code to program the machine. This speculation happens in a pocket universe where Padua can let her imagination flow. This book had a very interesting structure. Its the first book where I needed 2 bookmarks. Each page of each chapter had footnotes that related to the action in the various panels. There were also endnotes that further clarified the footnotes, as well as several appendices of various period documents (letters and articles) that helped emphasis the story.
What both fascinates me and frustrates me is that I'm not sure what's true and what's fiction. Obviously the main story is fiction, but the footnotes and endnotes provide excellent historical backup, but in some cases, I think, "that can't be true, can it?". Its witty, self-deprecating and I thoroughly enjoyed it. While I knew of Babbage and Lovelace beforehand, this give me incentive to read more about them.
8/10
S: 1/21/15 - F: 2/8/16 (19 Days)
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LibraryThing member Gwendydd
I am an English major turned historian turned web developer (and let's not forget feminist), and if you designed a book specifically to appeal to all of my geekinesses, you couldn't do much better than this.
First of all, it has Ada Lovelace, who is a fascinating person: the daughter of Lord Byron,
But what really made the academic historian in me squee was the research! Most of the dialog is quoted directly from primary sources. The book is full of other historical and literary figures such as Brunel, George Sand, Charles Dickens, and of course Queen Victoria. The comics not only have footnotes, but also endnotes AND appendices! Padua has done her research well, and clearly knows when she's being historical and when she is imagining alternate realities. The whole book is a labor of love and fascination, and as a reader, it is impossible not to share in that love and fascination.
This was fun to read, but now I'm looking forward to re-reading it.
First of all, it has Ada Lovelace, who is a fascinating person: the daughter of Lord Byron,
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whose mother didn't want her to be a poet and thus subjected her to a lot of math lessons, turning her into a mathematical prodigy who was able to foresee the potential of computing. Then there's Babbage, who is also pretty darn fascinating, not only for inventing a computer but also for being a classic British curmudgeon. Then, it sticks them in an alternate universe where Babbage has built his Analytical Engine. Since it's an alternate universe, Padua can make things happen just because it would have been cool if they had happened that way. A lesser author would just make a bunch of stuff up, but Padua recognizes that reality was almost the coolest thing ever, so she makes some very slight tweaks to reality (some episodes are almost entirely drawn from reality, and some episodes are more fantastical).But what really made the academic historian in me squee was the research! Most of the dialog is quoted directly from primary sources. The book is full of other historical and literary figures such as Brunel, George Sand, Charles Dickens, and of course Queen Victoria. The comics not only have footnotes, but also endnotes AND appendices! Padua has done her research well, and clearly knows when she's being historical and when she is imagining alternate realities. The whole book is a labor of love and fascination, and as a reader, it is impossible not to share in that love and fascination.
This was fun to read, but now I'm looking forward to re-reading it.
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LibraryThing member annbury
This delightful graphic novel starts off with the story of Ada Lovelace and William Babbage -- he the one who is generally credited with the invention of the computer, she the one who may actually have had the most to do with it. After an account of how Ada got to be the way she was, and how she
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and Babbage cooperated, the novel takes off into variations on what might have been, in a "pocket universe". I wish I had the math to appreciate this book to the fullest. Even with that handicap, however, I really enjoyed it. Reminds me a little of Caryl Brahms' "Don't, Mr. Disraeli" in the fun it has with Victorians (including Victoria!) and Victoriana. Show Less
LibraryThing member fred_mouse
There are so many things to love about this quirky collection of short stories about an alternative universe where Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage complete Babbage's Analytical Engine, and then go on to have mathematical adventures. The footnotes to historical references, the random bits of maths,
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the references to being in 2D (done so much better than Flatland, which is a book I love as much as I hate it) Show Less
LibraryThing member bragan
Charles Babbage was a Victorian inventor who came up with very, very detailed plans for what he called the Analytical Engine: a calculating machine that really would have been nothing more or less than a computer -- a primitive, limited, and clunky computer, but a full-fledged computer nonetheless
They were also, apparently, really fascinating, eccentric, and colorful characters who make great material for a graphic novel. Although I'm not actually sure whether "graphic novel" is quite the right word for this book. It's a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, with, as the subtitle suggests, rather more of the latter than the former. Actually, its origin story is rather charming. The author initially just created a humorous little biography of Ada Lovelace in webcomic form. But she found the end of that story a little too depressing for the light tone of the comic: Lovelace, sadly, died young, and Babbage died frustrated and unfulfilled, having never succeeded in actually constructing his Engine. So Padua instead concluded her comic by imagining a "pocket universe" in which they were able to build the thing, after all, and use it to "have thrilling adventures and fight crime." The comic turned out to be quite popular, which was nice, but also led to people assuming she was now writing a comic about the alternate-universe adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, when really she was just making a throwaway joke. She kept insisting to people that no, she wasn't writing anything of the kind, even as she kept finding herself, well, sort of writing it. This book is the result!
I actually do think the Lovelace bio that starts it out is the best part. It's hilarious, informative, geeky, and delightful. The fictionalized adventures that follow are sometimes whimsical -- one of them features an Alice-in-Wonderland version of Lovelace falling through a looking-glass into the Engine itself -- but are mostly just little excuses to bring in other famous people of the time, many of whom were personally known to Babbage and Lovelace, often taking their dialog directly from their written works or letters, and providing lots and lots of factual footnotes. Which sounds a bit dry, and the footnotes do get a little out of hand in the first adventure -- something the author notices and ends up making a meta-joke about -- but overall it actually works surprisingly well. The humor is always cute and fun, the historical facts are genuinely interesting, and Padua is clearly so fond of these two nutty geniuses and enthused by her own research into them that it's truly infectious.
She also includes interesting quotes from some primary sources she's found at the end, as well as a section showing her own drawings of the Analytical Engine and taking us through its workings. (Well, in a simplified fashion, anyway, because it's all very dauntingly complex.)
Recommended for anyone who's interested in Lovelace and Babbage, the history of computer science, the Victorian era in general, or a bit of pleasantly nerdy humor.
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-- made out of cogwheels and powered by steam. Which is an idea that, I think, just gets cooler and weirder the more you think about it. Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace was the only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron, a woman whose impressive intellect was deliberately channeled into mathematics by her mother in hopes that she wouldn't end up like her crazy poet father. She and Babbage hit it off wonderfully and formed a firm friendship and long-term collaboration on matters concerning the Analytical Engine. Where Babbage was focused on the mechanics of the device, Lovelace was more interested in its operation, and had some genuinely prophetic ideas about what machines like it might be capable of. She is sometimes described as being the first computer programmer.They were also, apparently, really fascinating, eccentric, and colorful characters who make great material for a graphic novel. Although I'm not actually sure whether "graphic novel" is quite the right word for this book. It's a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, with, as the subtitle suggests, rather more of the latter than the former. Actually, its origin story is rather charming. The author initially just created a humorous little biography of Ada Lovelace in webcomic form. But she found the end of that story a little too depressing for the light tone of the comic: Lovelace, sadly, died young, and Babbage died frustrated and unfulfilled, having never succeeded in actually constructing his Engine. So Padua instead concluded her comic by imagining a "pocket universe" in which they were able to build the thing, after all, and use it to "have thrilling adventures and fight crime." The comic turned out to be quite popular, which was nice, but also led to people assuming she was now writing a comic about the alternate-universe adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, when really she was just making a throwaway joke. She kept insisting to people that no, she wasn't writing anything of the kind, even as she kept finding herself, well, sort of writing it. This book is the result!
I actually do think the Lovelace bio that starts it out is the best part. It's hilarious, informative, geeky, and delightful. The fictionalized adventures that follow are sometimes whimsical -- one of them features an Alice-in-Wonderland version of Lovelace falling through a looking-glass into the Engine itself -- but are mostly just little excuses to bring in other famous people of the time, many of whom were personally known to Babbage and Lovelace, often taking their dialog directly from their written works or letters, and providing lots and lots of factual footnotes. Which sounds a bit dry, and the footnotes do get a little out of hand in the first adventure -- something the author notices and ends up making a meta-joke about -- but overall it actually works surprisingly well. The humor is always cute and fun, the historical facts are genuinely interesting, and Padua is clearly so fond of these two nutty geniuses and enthused by her own research into them that it's truly infectious.
She also includes interesting quotes from some primary sources she's found at the end, as well as a section showing her own drawings of the Analytical Engine and taking us through its workings. (Well, in a simplified fashion, anyway, because it's all very dauntingly complex.)
Recommended for anyone who's interested in Lovelace and Babbage, the history of computer science, the Victorian era in general, or a bit of pleasantly nerdy humor.
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LibraryThing member pwaites
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is an absolutely delightful graphic novel that contains a wealth of historical information regarding Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, and the history of computing while at the same time being relentlessly entertaining.
The book begins with a brief
Padua’s art is wonderfully effective. Her black and white drawings are imbued with energy and life, and I’m completely jealous of her skill at creating such wonderfully expressive faces!
In the foreword, Sydney Padua describes how the book began as a brief comic she created at a friend’s request for Ada Lovelace Day. When the end of her comic suggested an alternate universe, various corners of the internet thought she was planning a webcomic about steampunk style adventures between the duo. Although Padua had no such plans in mind, she began researching Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, and she wound up becoming utterly fascinated with Lovelace, Babbage, and the Analytical Engine. And Padua’s passion for her subject matter shines through at every turn, and the book is so much greater for it.
Padua also found much potential humor lying in wait. For instance, Charles Babbage had a long lasting vendetta against street musicians. Even when Padua is departing on some flight of fantasy, she still provides extensive footnotes on historical information. I’m not kidding, there’s pages and pages of footnotes, and I highly suggest reading all of them. They’re both knowledgeable and engaging. I ended up learning a lot in the process of reading The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, and like all the best books that dabble in history, it left me with a desire to go out and learn more.
I can’t recommend this altogether charming collection enough.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
The book begins with a brief
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history of Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, and their work on the invention of the computer and computer programming. However, both died before any of the machines Babbage planned were ever invented. And so Padua imagines an alternate ending – a world where their Analytical Engine reached completion and adventures ensue.Padua’s art is wonderfully effective. Her black and white drawings are imbued with energy and life, and I’m completely jealous of her skill at creating such wonderfully expressive faces!
In the foreword, Sydney Padua describes how the book began as a brief comic she created at a friend’s request for Ada Lovelace Day. When the end of her comic suggested an alternate universe, various corners of the internet thought she was planning a webcomic about steampunk style adventures between the duo. Although Padua had no such plans in mind, she began researching Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, and she wound up becoming utterly fascinated with Lovelace, Babbage, and the Analytical Engine. And Padua’s passion for her subject matter shines through at every turn, and the book is so much greater for it.
Padua also found much potential humor lying in wait. For instance, Charles Babbage had a long lasting vendetta against street musicians. Even when Padua is departing on some flight of fantasy, she still provides extensive footnotes on historical information. I’m not kidding, there’s pages and pages of footnotes, and I highly suggest reading all of them. They’re both knowledgeable and engaging. I ended up learning a lot in the process of reading The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, and like all the best books that dabble in history, it left me with a desire to go out and learn more.
I can’t recommend this altogether charming collection enough.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
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LibraryThing member bramboomen
This might be the nerdiest thing I have ever been into.
I think scholars can learn a thing or two from Padua. She has a passion for the subject that just jumps from the page and it is very infectious, also, she is hilarious. If I have just one criticism, it is that the footnotes during the comic,
I think scholars can learn a thing or two from Padua. She has a passion for the subject that just jumps from the page and it is very infectious, also, she is hilarious. If I have just one criticism, it is that the footnotes during the comic,
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and the enormous notes after each story plus the historical appendicx made each story a little unhinged. It was hard to know what to read and in which order. On the other hand, this will make me read the book again at least one more time which I already look forward to. Show Less
LibraryThing member questbird
A nicely-drawn and informative book about these two early computing pioneers, their times and contemporaries. Part of the book is the actual history of the pair, and part is an amusing sequence of hypotheticals set in a universe where Babbage's analytical engine had actually been built. Finally
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there is an appendix which illustrates and explains the Engine. Show Less
LibraryThing member weird_O
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua
The subtitle of this graphic novel is "The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer." The novel's creator, [[Sydney Padua]], manipulates the actual interactions of 19th century math prodigy Ada, Countess of Lovelace and eccentric
Babbage's Analytical Engine is central. Babbage designed a mechanical device, powered by a hand crank, with gears and shafts to calculate and print logorithmic tables. This he called the Difference Engine. A kind of test module was all that Babbage ever built, in part because he got a better idea: a much much larger and more complex machine with greater capabilities. He called that the Analytical Engine, and he didn't get that built either. He was fine-tuning his plans for it up until he died in 1871.
Ada, the Countess of Lovelace, you'll learn on the first page or two, was the daughter of poet Lord Byron. She was a math wiz, but also, as befits the spawn of Byron, a bit of a nutcase. She was 18 when she met the 42-year-old Babbage. Although a few experts dispute the claim, Lovelace is often cited as the person who wrote the first computer program. Padua, needless to say, makes a great deal of their association.
Padua conjures an alternative universe—Is this de rigueur in this type of publication?—so she can imagine that the Analytical Engine actually is built. She portrays it as a mammoth and deafening conglomeration of cogwheels, towering stacks of gears, shafts, levers, toggles, gauges, pipes, valves, pumps, tubes, switches, and endless belts of punched cards, housed in a Victorian warehouse of parallel corridors overhung by a web of catwalks suspended from skyhooks, linked by spiralling and Escherian stairways, all converging to a vanishing point shrouded in shadow and steam clouds. Superintending this mysterious, clicking, clanking, hissing, yes, even frightening, industrial-seeming behemoth—always just on the thin edge of control—is Ada Lovelace. Oh, not the frail Victorian Countess of Lovelace, but steely-eyed Ada, standing tall, clay pipe clamped in her teeth, garbed in Jodphurs, riding boots, and close-fitting tunic.
In an appendix, Padua does a remarkable job of transferring Babbage's 2-D engineering drawings of his machine into perspective views, to elucidate its operation. I can't say I grasp it entirely, but her presentation is fascinating.
In the short term, it all came to naught. Lovelace descended into periods of madness and died at 36 in 1852. Babbage rumbled on until his death in 1871, his Engines never built. But in the long term, Babbage is popularly recognized as the first computer designer, Lovelace as the first programmer. The book is novel, entertaining, and pretty informative.
The subtitle of this graphic novel is "The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer." The novel's creator, [[Sydney Padua]], manipulates the actual interactions of 19th century math prodigy Ada, Countess of Lovelace and eccentric
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genius Charles Babbage, so she can present and explain the workings of Babbage's Analytical Engine. She presents most of the story in comic strip format, taking liberties throughout to make an abstract (even abstruse) subject entertaining and, mostly, understandable. Notables of the Victorian Age—Queen Victoria herself, the Duke of Wellington, Marian Evans (bka George Eliot), Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dodgson (bka Lewis Carroll)—pass in and out of the narrative. Witty footnotes document the factual bases of situations, individuals, meetings, assertions, so the book isn't all comic strip. Yes, there actually are pages of text to read.Babbage's Analytical Engine is central. Babbage designed a mechanical device, powered by a hand crank, with gears and shafts to calculate and print logorithmic tables. This he called the Difference Engine. A kind of test module was all that Babbage ever built, in part because he got a better idea: a much much larger and more complex machine with greater capabilities. He called that the Analytical Engine, and he didn't get that built either. He was fine-tuning his plans for it up until he died in 1871.
Ada, the Countess of Lovelace, you'll learn on the first page or two, was the daughter of poet Lord Byron. She was a math wiz, but also, as befits the spawn of Byron, a bit of a nutcase. She was 18 when she met the 42-year-old Babbage. Although a few experts dispute the claim, Lovelace is often cited as the person who wrote the first computer program. Padua, needless to say, makes a great deal of their association.
Padua conjures an alternative universe—Is this de rigueur in this type of publication?—so she can imagine that the Analytical Engine actually is built. She portrays it as a mammoth and deafening conglomeration of cogwheels, towering stacks of gears, shafts, levers, toggles, gauges, pipes, valves, pumps, tubes, switches, and endless belts of punched cards, housed in a Victorian warehouse of parallel corridors overhung by a web of catwalks suspended from skyhooks, linked by spiralling and Escherian stairways, all converging to a vanishing point shrouded in shadow and steam clouds. Superintending this mysterious, clicking, clanking, hissing, yes, even frightening, industrial-seeming behemoth—always just on the thin edge of control—is Ada Lovelace. Oh, not the frail Victorian Countess of Lovelace, but steely-eyed Ada, standing tall, clay pipe clamped in her teeth, garbed in Jodphurs, riding boots, and close-fitting tunic.
In an appendix, Padua does a remarkable job of transferring Babbage's 2-D engineering drawings of his machine into perspective views, to elucidate its operation. I can't say I grasp it entirely, but her presentation is fascinating.
In the short term, it all came to naught. Lovelace descended into periods of madness and died at 36 in 1852. Babbage rumbled on until his death in 1871, his Engines never built. But in the long term, Babbage is popularly recognized as the first computer designer, Lovelace as the first programmer. The book is novel, entertaining, and pretty informative.
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LibraryThing member thoughtbox
I really wanted to like this book. Despite its subtitle ("the (mostly) true story of the first computer"), this graphic novel is better described as "A (mostly) true romp through Victorian mathematicians." Which isn't a bad thing! We get a nice little primer on Babbage and Lovelace's
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Analytical/Difference Engines, and a bunch of whimsical one-offs with historical figures that describe various mathematical functions that I still couldn't explain to you but at least now have an understanding of. Then again, in terms of actual Lovelace and Babbage things ... well, the author's notes about the relatively little time the two had to work on things, Lovelace's illness/untimely death and the general lack of publication by the two can explain the paucity of material, but then maybe don't center your book around them? Show Less
LibraryThing member Kaethe
So, on the one hand you have accurate historical background on Babbage and Lovelace and the work they did together.
And then there are the fantastical steampunk adventures they might have had if only they'd gotten around to making the first computer. The adventures are as heavily footnoted as the
And then there are the fantastical steampunk adventures they might have had if only they'd gotten around to making the first computer. The adventures are as heavily footnoted as the
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real history, so one can learn a great deal about the historical figures, the process of digging through history for evidence, and more. Great fun for all ages, although the really young would need an advanced reader to help. Show Less
LibraryThing member elenchus
Inspired to purchase off my TBR list after re-reading Gibson's & Sterling's The Difference Engine. Padua, too, thinks the difference engine is a cooler name, though both are concerned actually with Babbage's analytical engine. Padua's is a fabulist take on Gibson's & Sterling's appendix, and is
Padua's tales (more vignettes than typical stories) are best in conveying specific aspects of the Engine or the biographies of Lovelace and Babbage, in a cheeky manner but without losing the thread of their accomplishments. Without the footnotes and documentation, the comic itself would be a far lesser achievement.
//
Fabulism aside, Padua's documentation is detailed, I can imagine no better introduction to both the breadth of Lovelace's biography and Babbage's, as well as several of the finer details and asides. It appears Padua found a primary document unknown to scholars which she uses to claim proof of Lovelace's mathematics bona fides and of Babbage's sincere admiration for her as friend and mathematician:
The anti-Ada position, briefly, was that Babbage was never a true friend to Lovelace; that he did not think her a good mathematician; and that he must basically have written the Notes on the Engine himself. So you may imagine my very great pleasure when I stumbled across a document that contradicts every one of these points at one single stroke. [241]
The document is a letter from Henry Reed, describing a personal visit from Babbage and published in an 1867 number of Southern Review, stating explicitly that Babbage said to Reed that Lady Lovelace was the author of the only paper on the "software" for his Engine, and he admired her skills very much. There is at this time no reason at all to believe Reed would fabricate.
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itself chock-a-block with footnotes and appendices. The two works complement one another exceedingly well.Padua's tales (more vignettes than typical stories) are best in conveying specific aspects of the Engine or the biographies of Lovelace and Babbage, in a cheeky manner but without losing the thread of their accomplishments. Without the footnotes and documentation, the comic itself would be a far lesser achievement.
//
Fabulism aside, Padua's documentation is detailed, I can imagine no better introduction to both the breadth of Lovelace's biography and Babbage's, as well as several of the finer details and asides. It appears Padua found a primary document unknown to scholars which she uses to claim proof of Lovelace's mathematics bona fides and of Babbage's sincere admiration for her as friend and mathematician:
The anti-Ada position, briefly, was that Babbage was never a true friend to Lovelace; that he did not think her a good mathematician; and that he must basically have written the Notes on the Engine himself. So you may imagine my very great pleasure when I stumbled across a document that contradicts every one of these points at one single stroke. [241]
The document is a letter from Henry Reed, describing a personal visit from Babbage and published in an 1867 number of Southern Review, stating explicitly that Babbage said to Reed that Lady Lovelace was the author of the only paper on the "software" for his Engine, and he admired her skills very much. There is at this time no reason at all to believe Reed would fabricate.
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LibraryThing member AmyMacEvilly
Some might say "too many [foot]notes" of this. If you're someone who gets distracted by them, you'll have to focus yourself. Good bit of whimsy and fancy in the story and the drawing: LOTS of supporting exposition, explanation, and documentation. Could be used in a history class to talk about use
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of primary sources. Show Less
LibraryThing member greeniezona
Had this book merely been composed of the comics we were promised on the front cover, it would have been charming enough. But where I really fell in love with this book was the NOTES. Footnote after footnote, then piles of endnotes after that, then footnotes in the appendices! Padua is clearly my
It's lovely and wonderful. I hope Padua writes more.
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kind of geek. She's not content just to present you with a clever comic, she's going to make sure that you are in on all of the jokes, prove just exactly how clever she is, and then back up nearly every single line and drawing with primary and secondary sources, leaping right into the fray of "How Important Was Ada Lovelace, Really?" It's lovely and wonderful. I hope Padua writes more.
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LibraryThing member kevn57
Excellent introduction to the difference engine, Babbage and Ada Lovelace and a really enjoyable read. The author includes historical notes and info on finding more, google books and the internet archive.
LibraryThing member eraderneely
Awesome first graphic novel for me. Teaching me the history of early computing (among other things) while imagining the adventures of Lovelace and Babbage as superheros.
LibraryThing member fyrefly98
Summary: Charles Babbage is often regarded as the father of computing, having created in 1822 what he called The Difference Engine, a machine that could calculate polynomial functions automatically, and drawing up plans in the 1830s for (although never actually building, due to lack of funding,
In reality, both Lovelace and Babbage died before the Analytical Engine could be built. In this book, however, Padua plays a bit loose with time and space and history, inventing a "pocket universe" in which Lovelace didn't die young, the Analytical Engine was built and functional (mostly), and Lovelace and Babbage team up and use their invention to solve crimes, among other services to the realm.
Review: This graphic novel is not your standard graphic novel. Several of the actual comics that are included in the book can be found at Padua's website. But in the book, they're surrounded with text - introduction, footnotes, extensive endnotes, back matter, etc., which was way more than I was expecting - usually I can fly through a graphic novel in an hour or so... this one took me five days of serious concentration. So Padua does a lot of things with layout, and format, and the combinations of fiction and fact, and footnotes, and the ratio of graphic to actual text, that all felt very experimental to me. I don't know that the experiment was entirely successful, at least for me, but I really appreciate the magnitude of what Padua was trying to tackle here, and the creative way she went about doing it. I did find the history very interesting - Lovelace and Babbage's story was not one that I'd encountered before - and I liked the steampunk sensibility to the pocket universe scenes, and the funny (if exceptionally and awesomely nerdy) jokes sprinkled throughout. But because I have a pathological inability to just leave endnotes to the end, instead referencing them whenever they appear in the text, the format really broke up the flow for me, and I found it extremely difficult to just kick back and enjoy the fun steampunky story parts. But even in the denser, more technical parts of the book, the whole enterprise was saved by the author's clear gleeful enthusiasm for her subject matter that comes bubbling through the thick Victorian quotations and the complicated mathematical explanations. This book was challenging for me, both in terms of material and in terms of format, but it was a good challenge, and I think it helps to keep expanding our boundaries around what graphic novels are and what they can do, even if this particular effort didn't entirely work for me. 3 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: If you go into this looking for just comics, I'd stick to reading the ones that are available on Padua's website. But if you're interested in the history of science and mathematics, or like steampunk but want the real history behind some of the most steampunky things the actual Victorian era produced, this is an ambitious but still light-hearted way to approach some of that.
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among other difficulties) The Analytical Engine, a more general purpose computational machine that was to be controlled by punch cards. Ada Lovelace's contributions are typically less well known, but she provided annotations and elaborations on Babbage's work, as well as writing programs from the Analytical Engine, making her in essence the first computer programmer. She was also the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, and her early interest in math was encouraged by her mother as an antidote to the poetical (and insane) influences of her father.In reality, both Lovelace and Babbage died before the Analytical Engine could be built. In this book, however, Padua plays a bit loose with time and space and history, inventing a "pocket universe" in which Lovelace didn't die young, the Analytical Engine was built and functional (mostly), and Lovelace and Babbage team up and use their invention to solve crimes, among other services to the realm.
Review: This graphic novel is not your standard graphic novel. Several of the actual comics that are included in the book can be found at Padua's website. But in the book, they're surrounded with text - introduction, footnotes, extensive endnotes, back matter, etc., which was way more than I was expecting - usually I can fly through a graphic novel in an hour or so... this one took me five days of serious concentration. So Padua does a lot of things with layout, and format, and the combinations of fiction and fact, and footnotes, and the ratio of graphic to actual text, that all felt very experimental to me. I don't know that the experiment was entirely successful, at least for me, but I really appreciate the magnitude of what Padua was trying to tackle here, and the creative way she went about doing it. I did find the history very interesting - Lovelace and Babbage's story was not one that I'd encountered before - and I liked the steampunk sensibility to the pocket universe scenes, and the funny (if exceptionally and awesomely nerdy) jokes sprinkled throughout. But because I have a pathological inability to just leave endnotes to the end, instead referencing them whenever they appear in the text, the format really broke up the flow for me, and I found it extremely difficult to just kick back and enjoy the fun steampunky story parts. But even in the denser, more technical parts of the book, the whole enterprise was saved by the author's clear gleeful enthusiasm for her subject matter that comes bubbling through the thick Victorian quotations and the complicated mathematical explanations. This book was challenging for me, both in terms of material and in terms of format, but it was a good challenge, and I think it helps to keep expanding our boundaries around what graphic novels are and what they can do, even if this particular effort didn't entirely work for me. 3 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: If you go into this looking for just comics, I'd stick to reading the ones that are available on Padua's website. But if you're interested in the history of science and mathematics, or like steampunk but want the real history behind some of the most steampunky things the actual Victorian era produced, this is an ambitious but still light-hearted way to approach some of that.
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LibraryThing member simchaboston
Whimsical, educational, and yes, even thrilling. Padua's graphic novel eloquently and humorously tells the story of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace -- both the real timeline, in which the brilliant but temperamental inventors never realize their visions, and an imaginary one in which they actually
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build a ginormous steam-powered computer. The research is meticulous (there are tons of excerpts from the main characters' papers, as well as various diagrams that I wish I understood better), and the illustrations are just fantastic. I'm looking forward to sequels -- and, once Padua recovers from publishing this, more webcomics! Show Less
LibraryThing member mimo
As you can see from all the shelves I put it on, this book is a little bit of a lot of things. Very informative, well-researched, extremely creative, and humorously annotated. Warning: it's not very linear, which is good if you like that sort of thing (I do).
I was first drawn to this as I recalled
I was first drawn to this as I recalled
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Babbage from a mentioned from a LIS prof. Lady Lovelace is new to me (shame on me). It was immensely entertaining AND informative. Show Less
LibraryThing member fionaanne
So awesomely wonderful that words fail me. Read it yourself.
Awards
Eisner Award (Nominee)
Neumann Prize (2015)
NPR: Books We Love (2015)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Teen — 2015)
Original language
English
Original publication date
2015-04-21
Physical description
317 p.; 7.33 inches
ISBN
0307908275 / 9780307908278