Fynh liest reviewed Rise and Fall of D. O. D. O. by Neal Stephenson
Witches and magic, physics and technics, time travel, history, bureaucracy... and Vikings!
4 stars
Sometimes, I wasn't sure what to make of this book, but the last part alone was so good that I'm really happy that I didn't put it away before getting there.
I quickly grew on the two main characters Melisande and Tristan. The story also dove right away into the main subject of magic and it being gone in the present and it all sounded promising. We accompany the two of them how they try to research why magic vanished, how they try to restore it, how they build up the eponymous D.O.D.O. with which they are trying to achieve their goals, how they travel through time and how they make companions and enemies along their way. And most of that is well-told, entertaining, clever and frequently very funny.
But then there are parts that launch into very in-depth explanations of for example how the device is build that they …
Sometimes, I wasn't sure what to make of this book, but the last part alone was so good that I'm really happy that I didn't put it away before getting there.
I quickly grew on the two main characters Melisande and Tristan. The story also dove right away into the main subject of magic and it being gone in the present and it all sounded promising. We accompany the two of them how they try to research why magic vanished, how they try to restore it, how they build up the eponymous D.O.D.O. with which they are trying to achieve their goals, how they travel through time and how they make companions and enemies along their way. And most of that is well-told, entertaining, clever and frequently very funny.
But then there are parts that launch into very in-depth explanations of for example how the device is build that they need to do that. And especially the middle part goes wild about the development of D.O.D.O. as an institution, it's organisational structures and the bureaucracy that is involved. Sometimes it was very hard to work through that and I was wondering where this was going and whether it would ever end and go back to story-telling.
But on the other hand, I liked some of those detailled explanations, especially the idea of multiple Strands of time and how doing stuff in only one past Strand only has a very small effect on the present which makes them having to change several of them in order to achieve a proper effect. I also loved the stories of their time travels which also give us nice-to-know background information of real historical events or figures.
The story is mostly told via the Diachronicle, Melisande's account of what happened to her during her time at D.O.D.O. But as D.O.D.O. grows bigger and more characters get involved, that changes and we get to read chat protocols, journal entries, letters, action reports (of time travel deeds), documents, policies, briefing protocols and even a Norse-style epic in verse. I needed a bit to get used to that, because sometimes it seemed like that it was all about the organisational structure of the department, as told above, mixed with some occasional episodes of a time travel story, and didn't contribute to the story as such.
But at some point I thought that reading wasn't only about progressing through a story, but for the fun of reading itself, isn't it? And after some time I began to enjoy reading through that as well. After all, this way of telling a story is actually very immersive, since it makes the whole thing very found-footage-like. Plus, I promise, that all of those details and seemingly unrelated pieces of information and episodes turn out to be part of a complex, intertwined and well thought out story and add up in a very intense finale with several not quite expected plot twists.
Alltogether, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. was an entertaining read with nice and relatable characters (some of which we only really get to know near the end), a good story, which is mostly told in a slow-paced way and gives us cool glimpes into world history, and a grand finale.
