The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

Starred review from May 1, 2017
Immense and immensely entertaining genre-hopping yarn from hard-core sci-fi veteran Stephenson (Seveneves, 2015, etc.) and historical novelist Galland (Stepdog, 2015, etc.)."You have an agreeably uninteresting existence," says the shadowy government recruiter. "Let's see if we can change that." Our heroine, a brilliant specialist in ancient languages, cannot refuse, especially since the pay packet Tristan Lyons is offering is many times more than her adjunct position pays. With that, they're off--but where? Blend time travel with Bourne-worthy skulduggery, throw in lashings of technology and dashes of steampunk, and you have the makings of this overstuffed, disbelief-begging storyline. That storyline begins and ends with language, but in between there's a fair amount of outright mad science, courtesy of the inventor of the Ontic Decoherence Cavity ("An MIT physics professor who tried to patent groundbreaking technological innovations is a Luddite?"), and--well, of witchcraft, which seems an uneasy fit at first but soon comes to make as much sense as anything else in this head-spinning tale. And what is D.O.D.O., the place where the ODEC is put into play courtesy of DARPA? Melisande Stokes, said linguist, gamely guesses that it means "Department of Diabolical Obscurantism," but no, it's much more than all that. Stephenson and Galland turn ethnic cliches on their heads, introducing Magyar sorceresses and hipper-than-thou Asian baristas into the mix as their yarn careens into Dan Brown land: we know we're there when we hit on Athanasius Fugger and his penumbral lineage, "completely absent from the historical record," characters worthy of Umberto Eco and perfectly at home here. Suffice it to say that the story gets weirder and more madcap from there. A departure for both authors and a pleasing combination of much appeal to fans of speculative fiction.

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January 1, 2017
According to the dusty old documents military intelligence operator Tristan Lyons asks linguistics expert Melisande Stokes to translate, magic actually existed until the scientific revolution. The government's Department of Diachronic Operations aims to get it back. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2017

Dr. Melisande Stokes pens a diary in which she chronicles the events that brought her to 1851 London, where she has been marooned against her will. She writes it so that someone in the future (2017) will discover it and learn how D.O.D.O., a secret government organization, unlocked the secret of time travel. Her tale begins in the halls of Harvard, where she meets government official Tristan Lyons, who lures her from her job as professor of ancient languages so she can read the ancient texts needed to understand where and how magic worked in the past. His plan: to travel back in time to connect with those who practiced magic. How to do that is up to physicist Frank Oda, who is tasked with designing the method of transportation. It is only when Melisande meets Erzabet Karpathy, a witch from the past with knowledge of their aims, that she understands the real mission: to bring magic back and put it to work today. Melisande's diary carries the story, but Viking sagas, email conversations, government memos, and 16th-century handwritten letters are interspersed throughout. There are others who want this information. Can D.O.D.O. defeat them? VERDICT Fans of science fiction, science, history, romance, and shady government operations will love this rich narrative about a world in which time travel and magic seem possible.-Connie Williams, Petaluma High School, CA

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 15, 2017
What would you give to bring magic back into the world? According to Stephenson and Galland's enticing speculative thriller, Melisande Stokes paid a high price. Stranded in mid-nineteenth-century England, she records a chronicle of her involvement with the Department of Diachronic Operations (D.O.D.O.). Her account explains how military officer and trained physicist Tristan Lyons recruited her to work for D.O.D.O. in the twenty-first century. Melisande's skill with several ancient languages made her uniquely qualified to translate a collection of documents from a variety of time periods and locales. Working together, she and Tristan discover the impossible, that magic is real and was openly practiced until 1851. Further investigations lead them to Frank Oda, a former MIT physics professor who tried to patent an ODEC, a device that may allow for practicing magic. The powers at D.O.D.O. are determined to have magic back at any cost, but for the ODEC to work, they need a witch, if one still exists. Assuming they find a witch and restore her powers, how can they trust her? Combining Melisande's recollections with journal entries, mission logs, emails, transcripts from multiple characters, and epic Norse poetry, the authors spin a complex and engaging what-if tale that blends technology and history. Ready-made for fans of intricate speculative fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)