The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
ByPublisher Description
A New York Times Bestseller
From bestselling author Neal Stephenson and critically acclaimed historical and contemporary commercial novelist Nicole Galland comes a captivating and complex near-future thriller combining history, science, magic, mystery, intrigue, and adventure that questions the very foundations of the modern world.
When Melisande Stokes, an expert in linguistics and languages, accidently meets military intelligence operator Tristan Lyons in a hallway at Harvard University, it is the beginning of a chain of events that will alter their lives and human history itself. The young man from a shadowy government entity approaches Mel, a low-level faculty member, with an incredible offer. The only condition: she must sign a nondisclosure agreement in return for the rather large sum of money.
Tristan needs Mel to translate some very old documents, which, if authentic, are earth-shattering. They prove that magic actually existed and was practiced for centuries. But the arrival of the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment weakened its power and endangered its practitioners. Magic stopped working altogether in 1851, at the time of the Great Exhibition at London’s Crystal Palace—the world’s fair celebrating the rise of industrial technology and commerce. Something about the modern world "jams" the "frequencies" used by magic, and it’s up to Tristan to find out why.
And so the Department of Diachronic Operations—D.O.D.O. —gets cracking on its real mission: to develop a device that can bring magic back, and send Diachronic Operatives back in time to keep it alive . . . and meddle with a little history at the same time. But while Tristan and his expanding operation master the science and build the technology, they overlook the mercurial—and treacherous—nature of the human heart.
Written with the genius, complexity, and innovation that characterize all of Neal Stephenson’s work and steeped with the down-to-earth warmth and humor of Nicole Galland’s storytelling style, this exciting and vividly realized work of science fiction will make you believe in the impossible, and take you to places—and times—beyond imagining.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities646 Reviews
Redalita15
Created 28 days ago
Alex Norriss
Created 29 days ago
“a really fun conceit but the schtick of the different formats and styles threw me out of the narrative on a regular basis, and there was a general needless horniness throughout that felt out of place.
I wanted more of the fringe characters in interestingly and detailed historical settings, more chronological wonkiness and Bill and Ted bin on head logic.
Don't think I'll invest my time in the sequel.”
“Not Stephenson's greatest work, though if that's the curve you're grading on there's still potentially a lot to recommend here.
Something I think I've identified as a consistent theme in his works is the way it starts with a small idea or discovery, the implications of which are then followed through with a rigorous and expansive logic, and an increasing system of bureaucracy inevitably builds up around it, as the possibilities for its exploitation are realised and developed by more and more people. It's a kind of worldbuilding he's especially good at, and a big part of why this book works as well as it does and kept me as engaged as it did.
However, I was disappointed by the finished product in a few ways, and it's getting spoilery from here onward, so be warned.
So the time travel stuff really didn't make sense. I don't know that I've ever encountered a time travel story that unimpeachably "makes sense" but the system of magic in this book often doesn't make sense in a way that feels uncharacteristically slapdash and hand-wavey. The thing with the Trapezoid felt like it was building up to some kind of clever reveal, or hinting at some kind of eerie difference between their world and ours, but then aside from a brief bit of business with the Pentagon it didn't really come to anything.
(Also the entire underlying premise about the disappearance of magic is based on a nonsensical misreading of quantum theory. It might be ungenerous not to give it a pass on that one, but apparently I wasn't feeling generous because it never stopped bugging me.)
It also felt like they really didn't have any ideas on how to wrap things up. There's the exciting climax where a bunch of things start happening very fast and come to a head, but then it just stops before anything's really resolved.
Complaint number whatever is that the epistolary style often felt forced. Some of it worked well enough - I like the notion of telling a story through a collection of message board announcements, and diary entries from someone principally concerned with documenting how the seasonal climate is affecting their flower garden - but all too often it was jarring to read paragraphs of dialogue and lengthy prose-like scene description, and then be reminded that these are apparently notes being scribbled by someone pushed for time using makeshift ink in the 19th century.
Perhaps part of my problem is I'm thinking of it as a Neal Stephenson work, rather than a collaboration - I'm not familiar with any of Nicole Galland's other writing, and I suspect it may not be quite my thing, but maybe she brings something that'd make Stephenson's usual style more accessible or enjoyable for some folk.
In conclusion, I had more fun reading this than it might seem from the proportion of this review I spent complaining about it, and it's the mildest of criticism to remark that it's no Snow Crash or Anathem.”About Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels Termination Shock, Fall; or, Dodge in Hell, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (with Nicole Galland), Seveneves, Reamde, Anathem, The System of the World, The Confusion, Quicksilver, Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, Zodiac, and the groundbreaking nonfiction work In the Beginning . . .Was the Command Line. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
Other books by Neal Stephenson
Nicole Galland
Nicole Galland is the author of the historical novels I, Iago; Godiva; Crossed; Revenge of the Rose; and The Fool’s Tale; as well as the contemporary romantic comedies On the Same Page and Stepdog, and the New York Times bestselling near-future thriller The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (with Neal Stephenson).
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