Reviews

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Nicole Galland, Neal Stephenson

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revisins's review

4.0

Jaunty and fun. Layered and multi-disciplined. The various formats found within the pages make the story have a more a lived in feel. When you got time travel to contend with--it's important to see how it effects everyone else in the narrative world.

This book was a lot of fun. Perhaps too brisk in some parts and to laden in others. It's a balancing act that mostly works.

Did this book need another 300 pages? Perhaps...or perhaps only a 100 more with a culling of 50 existing. Again...the balancing act.

Well worth the time of the read. Take a chance. I'd read more in this multiverse.

angorarabbit's review

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I like Neal Stephenson’s writing. I made it all the way through the Cryptonomicon and Anathem. I loved Anathem. I also have a bad habit of reading ahead.

I got about 25% of the way through DODO #1 and discovered I didn’t want to read ahead. I didn’t want to read any of it.

Why?

Way to much quantum theory Schrödinger’s cat woo. Please can we leave the poor cat in peace?

Plot holes big enough to drive the Enterprise D through at Warp 11.

Too much playing on the strings makes my head dizzy.

Stereotypical characters. Especially the witches.

So much mansplaining and repetition. ( I make no comparison to
Groundhog Day since I never saw the movie.)

To end I will just say they could have written a couple of papers and received at least two Nobel Prizes. One for time travel and one proving String Theory and Many Worlds Theory. That should have given them enough money to not depend on uncertain funding sources.

Sorry, I wanted to love it but could not would not finish. Not even with house panthers and calicos.

lulucent's review

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promising setup but linguist bits and spontaneous romance was quite unrealistic (as unrealistic as things can be in fantasy / sci-fi) and the set-up took too long

mew41's review against another edition

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Erszebet Karpathy was a deeply unlikable character who ruined my joy of this book. Might return to at a later date in print

katushka's review

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.25

tophat8855's review

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4.0

I was going to give it 3, but it at least got linguistics and philology better than Seveneves, so I bumped it to 4. I listened via Hoopla and I think that was pretty golden. The audiobook is great for different voices, accents, and languages of the characters.

It's your usual time travel conundrums, but with witches, so that's fun.