As the London-based author notes, her eponymous webcomic "started as a punchline to a one-shot comic—hey, wouldn't it be hilarious if there was a comic about Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage fighting crime?—has evolved into…well, a really really long punchline." James Gleick kindly brought this hilarity to the attention of Pantheon's editors, and a book was born—the publisher's biggest graphic novel.

Originally a webcomic, this collection of jests interweaves history, literature, and fantasy into short stories starring Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Babbage's machines, and a number of 19th-century luminaries. Fact: Lord Byron's mathematically minded daughter Ada and inventor-wannabe Charles were lifelong BFFs and collaborated on writings about the proto-computers that Charles wanted to build. Fiction: that either the "Difference Engine" or the "Analytical Engine" was actually built or helped the Victorian pair do battle with the banking system. Fortunately, London-based animator Padua doesn't let facts get in the way of steampunk, and she has a great deal of fun riffing verbally and visually on techno-math geekery. Notes, references, original documents, and amusing speculations intercut the drawings—you can read just the comic, follow the comic and supporting texts, or dip into the texts later. The black-and-white art delivers all the humorous vivacity of solid editorial cartooning when showing, for example, Ada climbing through machine innards with crowbar in hand and pipe in mouth. VERDICT Padua's extravaganza is very much for the whimsical intelligentsia and will speak to those interested in computers or math who will delight in the abundant background materials.—M.C.

This print edition of Padua's webcomic is a must-have for anyone who enjoys getting lost in a story as brilliant in execution as conception. Padua debut graphic novel transforms the collaboration between Ada Lovelace (the daughter of Lord Byron) and Charles Babbage (a noted polymath) into an inspired, "What If?" story. Lovelace was a talented mathematician and helped translate a paper on Babbage's ideas for an Analytical Engine, the world's first computer. The notes she added to the translation were so cleverly detailed that experts today recognize them as the first example of computer programming. Although Lovelace died a few years later and Babbage was left to tinker with his Analytical Engine until his death, Padua imagines an alternate reality where they build the engine and use it to "have thrilling adventures and fight crime!" The immensity of Padua's research and the wit and allusions of her prose are striking, saying as much about what drove her to explore the possibilities of her protagonists' relationship as about the protagonists themselves. Permeated by delightful illustrations, obsessive foot- and endnotes, and a spirit of genuine inventiveness, it's an early candidate for the year's best. (Apr.)