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A review by gavinofhaynes
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Nicole Galland, Neal Stephenson
2.0
This has to be one of the most Neal Stephenson books I've read in some time. Nicole Galland (the co-author) has a hand in it, which is appreciated, but it seems at times that no amount of traditional storytelling can overpower Stephenson's desire to brainstorm strange scenarios.
I've always had a love/hate relationship with Stephenson's books. He more or less abandons standard plot development in order to build out wild and often obscure settings that are usually overly obsessed with some certain aspect of science or math. This trend continues as we are placed in a version of our current world where quantum physics, linguistics, and historic references to witchcraft are all pivotal plot points. The scenario is interesting enough, via cool-sounding physics theorems we can use witches (who are real) to time travel and alter the world as we know it today.
The hate portion of this relationship arises once this strange plan starts coming to fruition. Where a traditional story may slowly introduce world building through off-handed mentions or some light exposition, D.O.D.O. goes the way of a literal data dump at times. Since this book takes place within a fictional government agency, what better way to build a world then through office memos, internal wiki sites, and corporate meetings related to acronym usage? If this sounds like it could wear a reader thin, you have found the heart of my reasoning for rating this book as so. As clever as some of the jokes and drama of office life are, this book is too long to carry it. At least 20% of this book is written in office style writing, which means you are reading a small book of emails and memos. This device isn't clever or enjoyable enough for me to forgive it for going that long.
As far as the love part of the relationship, this has some major ups and downs. Bringing in a co-author greatly helps in making some of the characters more interesting, which is usually a struggle in these books. The two primary characters are the best I've read in a Stephenson book in some time, and there is good chemistry between them and the side characters. Despite this, the story is still an absolute train wreck. Some of this I think is an intentional play on the absurdity of time travel plots, but at the end of the book I found myself asking if anything I read mattered.
Ultimately, I feel that I've read nearly 800 page campaign setting for an RPG. The world created is richly detailed, to the point of ridiculousness. However, the story in-between the details is so lacking that I found myself struggling to give it attention.
I've always had a love/hate relationship with Stephenson's books. He more or less abandons standard plot development in order to build out wild and often obscure settings that are usually overly obsessed with some certain aspect of science or math. This trend continues as we are placed in a version of our current world where quantum physics, linguistics, and historic references to witchcraft are all pivotal plot points. The scenario is interesting enough, via cool-sounding physics theorems we can use witches (who are real) to time travel and alter the world as we know it today.
The hate portion of this relationship arises once this strange plan starts coming to fruition. Where a traditional story may slowly introduce world building through off-handed mentions or some light exposition, D.O.D.O. goes the way of a literal data dump at times. Since this book takes place within a fictional government agency, what better way to build a world then through office memos, internal wiki sites, and corporate meetings related to acronym usage? If this sounds like it could wear a reader thin, you have found the heart of my reasoning for rating this book as so. As clever as some of the jokes and drama of office life are, this book is too long to carry it. At least 20% of this book is written in office style writing, which means you are reading a small book of emails and memos. This device isn't clever or enjoyable enough for me to forgive it for going that long.
As far as the love part of the relationship, this has some major ups and downs. Bringing in a co-author greatly helps in making some of the characters more interesting, which is usually a struggle in these books. The two primary characters are the best I've read in a Stephenson book in some time, and there is good chemistry between them and the side characters. Despite this, the story is still an absolute train wreck. Some of this I think is an intentional play on the absurdity of time travel plots, but at the end of the book I found myself asking if anything I read mattered.
Ultimately, I feel that I've read nearly 800 page campaign setting for an RPG. The world created is richly detailed, to the point of ridiculousness. However, the story in-between the details is so lacking that I found myself struggling to give it attention.