Clocking in at over 700 pages, the book is entirely composed of correspondence: letters, chat logs and redacted government documents. This unusual format allows the authors to create distinct voices for endearing characters, defining them without getting bogged down in backstory, and making more room to explore relationships and describe, in painstaking detail, the 'science' of magic and time travel. Better yet, Melisande trades one bureaucracy for another to prescient and hilarious effect. There’s a lot going on here — stylistic flourishes, comedic pratfalls, romance and science — but it’s handled deftly. Those familiar with Stephenson will recognize his humor and ideas, while Galland brings a fresh and irresistible voice to this ambitious novel.
Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland devise a premise that feels both familiar and fresh, mixing magic and science to pleasurable effect ... Stephenson has many sterling qualities — a playful sense of humor, a willingness to tackle big subjects with accuracy and rigor, a facility with thriller plots that contain well-hidden surprises. These traits are all on display in The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. He and Galland work so smoothly in tandem that the seams of their collaboration don’t show ... a high-stakes techno-farce with brains and heart, likely to be enjoyed by anyone willing to lift its more than 700 pages.
Luckily, the first 500 pages (!) are smart, hilarious, and bewitching enough to make up for a disappointing final third ... The sprawling cast is one of the book’s strongest points, especially the witches. Erzebet and her fellow witch, Grainne, are easily the two best characters in the book, playing off of common tropes of witches without ever falling slave to them. Stephenson and Galland don’t waste the time-travel premise, either, dropping in on pre-Fourth Crusade Constantinople, Elizabethan London, and many more ... Sadly, the fresh and fun ingenuity begin to wane as the novel grinds to a deus ex machina conclusion. The protagonists become uncharacteristically passive, and threads of plot, both large and small, are left unresolved or completely unaddressed ... a brave novel that defies genre and incorporates many of the best characteristics of both its contributing authors.
Real-world physicists talk about time travel as something theoretically possible but practically unachievable; Stephenson and Galland undertake things in this novel that are theoretically funny without ever making you laugh ... The temporal complications are farcical, but thinly so; the dialogue is often banter, but containing a very low ratio of humour to blathery exposition. Jokes are telegraphed. It’s the comedic equivalent of telling rather than showing ... Even so, though it’s no comic classic, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. is big, roomy and enjoyable. The historical scenes are refreshingly unembarrassed by their hey-nonny-nonnyisms. The characters are lively, the plot moves along and the whole thing possesses heart and charm.
[An] immense and immensely entertaining genre-hopping yarn ... Stephenson and Galland turn ethnic clichés 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.""[An] immense and immensely entertaining genre-hopping yarn ... Stephenson and Galland turn ethnic clichés 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.
Quantum physics, witchcraft, and multiple groups with conflicting agendas, playfully mixed with vernacular from several centuries and a dizzying number of acronyms, create a fascinating experiment in speculation and metafiction that never loses sight of the human foibles and affections of its cast.
