Long and light at the same time, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland is an enjoyable albeit tedious mashup of science fiction, fantasy, and history. It touches on magic, the death of magic, technological advancements, time travel, and history—often to places frequented by Vikings. 

Stephenson is known for big ideas and big novels, but don't expect another foray into Snow Crash or The Diamond Age. While the ideas and novel are big, so are Nicole Galland's fingerprints. The conversational tone is often lively and even airy, with only occasional bits that sound like Stephenson. (Incidentally, the sequel does not include Stephenson as a co-author.)

The story is almost straightforward, with a couple of noteworthy subplots. After learning that the demise of magic could be linked to the application of photography, a shadowy government agency sends an agent, Tristan Lyons, on a research and recruitment mission to bring it back. His first enlistee is Dr. Melisande Stokes, a Harvard linguistics lecturer, whom he sees as useful in translating historical texts. 

The novel takes a turn once magic is proven to be a historical certainty, and the duo shifts their focus toward bringing it back by making the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment a quantum theory practice of sorts. Not only did they accomplish this, but it seems that they had already accomplished this because one of the key components in working magic exists — a witch from 1851 who grudgingly prolonged her life at the urging of Stokes at another point in history. 

Of course, as often is the case with time travel, consequences tend to be a bit unpredictable. This is especially true when their tiny team of a few people grows into a bureaucracy that is eventually headed by an academic super bureaucrat, Professor Blevins. Incidentally, he is the same professor who credit-nabs Stokes's earlier translation work. 

Blevins lends a significant subplot in how good work can quickly unravel under the weight of a bureaucracy, given that bureaucracies are expressly more concerned with maintaining control than doing good work, invest more time in personnel management than outcomes, and have leaders who tend to underestimate everyone around them, whether they are allies or adversaries. In fact, they are generally so full of themselves that they often treat their allies like adversaries and become rubes for their adversaries who they treat like allies. You know, just like real life, as it happens. 

The result is that when you invite people like Vikings, witches, and bankers to be manipulated into helping you further your agenda, they might want to manipulate you back for their agenda. And so it goes — right up until the book ends a significant post-D.O.D.O. cliffhanger. Aside from the troublesome cliffhanger ending, the multiple narrative styles can be minorly problematic. 

It's not so much that the story can't told as records, recordings, and diary entries by secondary characters, but rather the Melisande Stokes narrative dominating most of the beginning and end of the book, which requires a bit of the shift in the middle. Sure, it's easy enough to get used to, but you might not want to after following along with Stokes for so long. And then, once you finally immerse yourself into the new narrative style, it feels awkward going back to Stokes at the end. 

Overall, it's a fun read for anyone craving speculative fiction and time travel with a splash of magic. But whether it is entertaining enough to snap up the sequel sans Stephenson has yet to be decided. Indeed, it won't be picked up this year despite my recommendation that D.O.D.O. is worth the read.