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

By: Neal Stephenson, Nicole Galland, Kate Udall

Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard, Shelley Atkinson, Laural Merlington, Joe Barrett, Will Damron, Luke Daniels

Length: 24 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

You think you know how the world works? Think again.

21st Century America

Magic has faded from the minds of mankind, until an encounter between Melisande Stokes, linguistics expert at Harvard, and Tristan Lyons, shadowy agent of government, leads to the uncovering of a distant past.

After translating a series of ancient texts, Melisande and Tristan discover the connection between science, magic and time travel and so the Department of Diachronic Operations – D.O.D.O. – is hastily brought into existence. Its mission: to develop a device that will send their agents back to the past, where they can stop magic from disappearing and alter the course of history.

But when you interfere with the past, there’s no telling what you might find in your future…

Written with genius and complexity, this vividly realised novel will make you believe the impossible, and question the very foundations of the modern world.

©2017 Neal Stephenson; Nicole Galland (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

‘A story that combines science, magic, history, and conspiracies into a genre-bending romp’ Inverse

‘Those familiar with Stephenson will recognize his humor and ideas, while Galland brings a fresh and irresistible voice to this ambitious novel’ Washington Post

‘The novel explores the boundary between magic and science with wit, intellectual intensity and panache’ Financial Times

‘Big, roomy and enjoyable … The characters are vibrant and the whole thing possesses heart and charm’ Guardian

Praise for Neal Stephenson:

‘Genius’ Time

‘He makes reading so much fun it feels like a deadly sin’ The New York Times

‘Fast-forward free-style mall mythology for the 21st century’
William Gibson

‘[Stephenson is] the hacker Hemingway’ Newsweek

Excellent! Great story line, well researched.

As with all Neal Stephenson novels, D.O.D.O. is well written and well researched. It was interesting, entertaining and when it was done, I wished there was more!

Neal Stephenson book

In the style of all other Neal Stephenson books. By that I mean Interesting ideas, cool bits of detail, a wide mix of characters, and a ending that falls apart.

A good read but no real closure.

Outstanding read.

Unlike many current SF. This story has a proper and well constructed beginning, middle and most importantly a very well tied up ending. The narration is first class and overall very enjoyable.

the maestro does it again....

another tour de firce from Stephenson. bravo. cant wait for the sequel to be released.

Meh

The story does not justify the length of this audiobook. Some chapters were just too hard to follow

Magic, Espionage and Time Travel

Very rarely I think is there a new concept in Time Travel fiction. It seems that there are a thousand stereotypical time travel stories that come out all the time. However this is not one of them. The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O is a unique story that explores a new set of ideas around the operation of Time Travel. Time Travel is in this case a mesh of magic and quantum theory, that uses the Schrödinger's famous thought experiment as a basis for its operation.

This book as the name suggests covers the rise and eventual fall of a secret government organisation known as D.O.D.O and the lives of various key members of the same. D.O.D.O.s humble beginnings are of a young US army member Tristan Lyons and a bored but intrepid university polyglot Melisande Stokes as they work through a stack of historical material on the existence of magic. There purpose: to find out whether it was real and how they can get it back. Questions abound; where can they find a witch? What was the notorious Professor Oda doing with cats, computers and superconductors in the basement?
Should they even be meddling with time in the first place? And why are they increasingly being watched by members of a medieval banking clan?

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. is a riveting and hilarious story with many engaging and amusing characters. It is brought to life with great effect by the use of multiple narration styles. This book has a particular charm as the events are described though multiple lenses to provide a true history. At various points the story is told from a chronicle of the events, diary entries, letters, recorded interviews and reports. Each of these is normally accompanied by a change in narrator and in some scenes multiple narrators are used to achieve the effect of an in-depth interview or inquiry.

This was one of the most original and entertaining Time Travel stories that I have ever had the pleasure to come across. It is well worth a credit!

A very pleasant surprise.

Almost passed this one by after reading some of the more critical reviews on here but am very glad that I did not. The voice acting is great, and while yes the chat log sections have a lot of timestamps I did not find it too problematic. Overall a great book and a lot of fun.