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

(The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O, by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland. William Morrow, 2017, 752 pp., $35.00)

reviewed by Zeke Teflon

Well, from Stephenson, this is something completely unexpected and different: a light, comic, genre-bending (sci-fi & fantasy) novel that mixes quantum physics with computer science, magic, witchcraft, time travel, and parallel universes. If this sounds more than a bit like the set-up of Charles Stross’s “Laundry” novels, it is. 

Another similarity is that the protagonists in both the Laundry Files novels and The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.  work for super-secret government agencies dealing with the occult. There are, however, major differences between the Stross and Stephenson/Gallard novels. One is that the “Laundry” stories feature first-person narration from a single point of view, and The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. has first-person narration from eight p.ov. characters (four male, four female), and the story is told via journal entries, memos, historical documents, transcripted conversations, and e-mail exchanges. This sounds like it could be a mess, but it’s not: the story is quite easy to follow, which given the narrative complexity is no mean feat.

All of the characters are well drawn, with distinctive behaviors, physical appearance, dress, speech patterns, writing styles, and personality quirks. Those characters range from the very sympathetic (Melisande, the primary character, and Tristan, the primary male character), to the utterly loathsome (Blevins, an abusive, puffed up hypocrite).

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. begins with a time-lock device: we learn from Melisande’s first journal entry that something has gone horribly wrong, and she’ll be stranded in 1851 unless she’s rescued within a few weeks.

From there, the story unwinds detailing the development of D.O.D.O. (Department of Diachronic Operations) from its humble beginnings with Tristan, who works for the Department of Defense, recruiting Melisande, an ancient language expert, to work on a nascent time travel project. Following that, D.O.D.O mushrooms, with Tristan and Melisande quickly recruiting Frank, a physicist working in the area of (what else?) quantum physics, who creates a time travel machine in which witches can practice magic and send people back in time.

Shortly, the DOD begins using the time machine to alter the past, and shortly after that the DOD official overseeing the project, General Frink, appoints a slimy, incompetent crony as its administrator in place of the competent Tristan. From there, several disasters ensue, ending with the time-lock situation (Melisande stranded in 1851) described at the beginning of the book.

There’s no point in detailing the plot further, except to say that it makes sense as much as any time travel plot can make sense (ultimately, they don’t — they’re inescapably paradoxical). So, time travel is one of the book’s two “gimmes”; the other is the existence of magic and witchcraft.

One very attractive feature of the book is that it has many genuinely funny moments, including a wonderful three-page passage on the reactions of surveillance personnel forced to watch the virtually nonstop sexual antics of two of the characters. This is the high, or at least the funniest, point in the interplay between the male and female characters, which is both amusing and believable throughout the book.

If there’s any lesson to be drawn from The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., it’s that hierarchical institutions are inherently dangerous, in part because incompetents in command positions can and do make terrible decisions, overriding the concerns of the competent people beneath them.

Other than that, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. has no redeeming social value other than being for the most part — it’s a bit on the long side — highly entertaining.

That’s more than enough to justify picking it up.

Recommended.

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Zeke Teflon is the author of Free Radicals: A Novel of Utopia and Dystopia (pdf sample here). He’s currently working on the sequel and on an unrelated sci-fi novel in his copious free time.

Review: Empire Games, by Charles Stross

(Empire Games, by Charles Stross. Tor, 2017, 331 pp. $25.99)

reviewed by Zeke Teflon

At long last, Charles Stross has produced another book in the “Merchant Princes” universe, a series which is basically near-future sci-fi in alternative-timelines guise. Empire Games is the first book in a new trilogy, with the second and third books scheduled for January 2018 and January 2019 respectively

Unfortunately, the book prior to Empire Games, The Trade of Queens, which concluded the original series, appeared in 2010, so even for those who read that series the characters and plot lines will likely have become hazy over time. I read the original series when it came out, and since then have started probably 500 or 600  sci-fi novels and finished maybe a third of them (so many books, so little time). If the characters and events from the earlier series were fresher in mind, I’d almost certainly have enjoyed Empire Games more than I did. Throughout the book, I found myself muttering, “now who exactly is that and what’s the back story here?”

Stross does, however, provide enough information within Empire Games so that a reader unfamiliar with the original series can follow the book, if not fully enjoy it.

As for the plot, backdrop and characters, Empire Games starts in 2020 in a parallel timeline to our own, in which renegade members of a ruling elite/criminal syndicate nuked the White House in 2003, and were in turn, along with the rest of their society, nuked back to the Stone Age by President Rumsfeld.

The resulting American society is similar to the present-day USA, but under the thumb of an even more oppressive security state which utilizes nearly all-pervasive surveillance, and in which the government seems to be a theocracy, with the fundies, Mormons, and (yes!) Scientologists embedded in the power structure.

In this horrid situation, a branch of the DHS makes an offer she can’t refuse to Rita Douglas, the (unavoidably abandoned) daughter of Miriam Burgeson, a minister in a democratic government in a third timeline, that is in arms race with the reactionary, monarchist French Empire, and that is conducting a crash technological/industrial revolution due to terror that the paranoid, violence-prone “Americans are coming.” This leads to the reason, in part, why the DHS forcibly recruited Rita — to act as a spy on her mother’s government and society.

This is a grossly inadequate summary of Empire Games, but there are six previous books in this “universe” that provide the necessary back story, and it’s impossible to summarize them in a few hundred words (even if I remembered them more clearly).

That said, there’s a lot to like about Empire Games, starting with the dedication: “For Iain M. Banks, who painted a picture of a better way.” Other positive aspects include Stross’s (as always) well drawn characters, intricate plot, and his accurate portrayal of the ruthlessness of the American government. The book even has an intriguing and unexpected twist right at the end.

One inadvertently funny facet of the book is that several of its characters live in the Phoenix suburbs, and Stross mentions with apparent horror a temperature of “almost a hundred Fahrenheit outside.” I couldn’t help but smile when I read that. In Arizona, we have a term for temperatures of “almost a hundred Fahrenheit”: “Winter.” (Here in Tucson, the forecast is for a high of 88 on Friday [Feb. 10], and it’ll quite possibly hit the mid-90s in Phoenix on that same day.)

The only real complaint I have about Empire Games is that an explanatory prologue would have been a huge help in comprehending and fully enjoying a book so far separated from its predecessors.

Highly recommended, nonetheless. But read the previous six “Merchant Princes” books first.

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(Reviewer Zeke Teflon is the author of Free Radicals: A Novel of Utopia and Dystopia. He’s currently working on its sequel and an unrelated sci-fi novel. A large sample from Free Radicals, in pdf form, is available here.)

Last Year, by Robert Charles Wilson

(Last Year, by Robert Charles Wilson. TOR, 2016, 351 pp., $27.99)

reviewed by Zeke Teflon

 

Prolific Canadian sci-fi author Robert Charles Wilson’s most recent novel, The Affinities (2016), was a thought-provoking, enjoyable read, as have been most of his previous books; he has, however, produced a few duds, such as Burning Paradise (2013), the novel preceding The Affinities. So, I was looking forward to this new book, hoping for the best but wondering where it would fall on the spectrum.

Last Year has its points. One is its premise, which is that sometime in the near future physicists will have discovered a way to access parallel time streams, and that a billionaire (August Kemp) has taken advantage of that discovery to open a type of Disneyland in 1873 Illinois. He uses that amusement park, Futurity City, to attract at top dollar the rich of the period to see the “wonders of the future,” and the 21st-century rich to indulge in a nostalgic (not so) “cheap holiday in other people’s misery.”

The protagonist is Jesse Cullum, a “local” working on Futurity City’s security detail, who comes to Kemp’s notice after foiling an assassination attempt on President Ulysses S. Grant. Cullum subsequently undertakes a number of special assignments with a partner from the 21st century, Elizabeth DePaul.

Wilson interweaves their adventures in the 1870s with Cullum’s back story as the son of a drunken whorehouse bouncer in San Francisco; following a violent altercation with the novel’s villain, mob boss Roscoe Candy, Cullum fled the city abandoning his injured sister to his aunt’s care.

To add tension to the tale–what is going to happen to all of these characters?–Wilson utilizes a “time lock” device: the portal to the future, “the mirror,” will close in 1877 to avoid excessive disruption to the time line in which it opened. With the time lock always lurking in the background, the tale unfolds, with the tension ramping up as the deadline approaches.

One of the virtues of Last Year is that Wilson uses the story to demystify both “Golden Age” America (racist, misogynistic, ignorant) and present-day America (somewhat less racist, misogynistic, and ignorant), and also to show that even the most apparently benevolent rich people can be (and almost inevitably are) warped by their wealth and power.

On the negative side, one minor problem is that while a fair portion of the book is set in San Francisco, Wilson is apparently unfamiliar with the place. For instance, he references people sweltering in their bedrooms during the summer. This is simply wrong. A typical summer day in San Francisco is overcast and foggy with a high of 55 and a low of 54; the warmest part of the year is in September and October, when the temperature will sometimes rise into the 80s, but usually doesn’t.

As well, the geography is slightly off. As an example, part of the action is set in a hotel on the block between Mission and Market on Montgomery Street. Wilson sets the walk to the Market Street wharf at 30 to 45 minutes from there. During my decade in San Francisco, I worked for a short time in a building half a block from the hypothetical hotel in Last Year; the walk from there to the wharf is a brisk 10 minutes, 15 if you take your time.

But these are minor matters. Anyone not familiar with San Francisco wouldn’t notice them.

A more major problem is that it’s too easy to figure out how the plot will resolve, as there are very few possible ways it could go. Halfway through Last Year, I thought I had it figured out, and I did. The details were all that were in question. Almost any reader who’s paying close attention would probably also figure out the plot.

Last Year is a mixed bag. The writing is, as usual from Wilson, skillful. The characters are interesting and (mostly) sympathetic. The action scenes are well described. And Wilson’s social commentary is spot on. It’s difficult, however, to get beyond the too obvious plot resolution.

If you’d want to read any of Wilson’s recent novels, I’d recommend The Affinities, not Last Year.

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(Reviewer Zeke Teflon is the author of Free Radicals: A Novel of Utopia and Dystopia. He’s currently working on its sequel. And an unrelated sci-fi novel.)