From bestselling author Neal Stephenson and critically acclaimed novelist Nicole Galland comes
a captivating and complex near-future thriller combining history science magic mystery
intrigue and adventure that questions the very foundations of the modern world. When Melisande
Stokes an expert in linguistics and languages accidently meets military intelligence operator
Tristan Lyons in a hallway at Harvard University it is the beginning of a chain of events that
will alter their lives and human history itself. The young man from a shadowy government entity
approaches Mel a low-level faculty member with an incredible offer. The only condition: she
must swear herself to secrecy in return for the rather large sum of money. Tristan needs Mel to
translate some very old documents which if authentic are earth-shattering. They prove that
magic actually existed and was practiced for centuries. But the arrival of the scientific
revolution and the Age of Enlightenment weakened its power and endangered its practitioners.
Magic stopped working altogether in 1851 at the time of the Great Exhibition at London's
Crystal Palace-the world's fair celebrating the rise of industrial technology and commerce.
Something about the modern world jams the frequencies used by magic and it's up to Tristan to
find out why. And so the Department of Diachronic Operations-D.O.D.O.-gets cracking on its real
mission: to develop a device that can bring magic back and send Diachronic Operatives back in
time to keep it alive . . . and meddle with a little history at the same time. But while
Tristan and his expanding operation master the science and build the technology they overlook
the mercurial-and treacherous-nature of the human heart. Written with the genius complexity
and innovation that characterize all of Neal Stephenson's work and steeped with the
down-to-earth warmth and humor of Nicole Galland's storytelling style this exciting and
vividly realized work of science fiction will make you believe in the impossible and take you
to places-and times-beyond imagining.
