NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Goodreads Choice Awards Semifinalist B&N Editor\'s Pick - Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2017 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.
Written with the genius, complexity, and innovation that characterize all of Neal Stephenson\'s work and steeped with the dow.
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. and meddle with a little history at the same time. . .
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 .
O.
D.
And so the Department of Diachronic Operations--D.
Something about the modern world "jams" the "frequencies" used by magic, and it\'s up to Tristan to find out why.
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.
But the arrival of the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment weakened its power and endangered its practitioners.
They prove that magic actually existed and was practiced for centuries.
Tristan needs Mel to translate some very old documents, which, if authentic, are earth-shattering.
The only condition: she must swear herself to secrecy in return for the rather large sum of money.
The young man from a shadowy government entity approaches Mel, a low-level faculty member, with an incredible offer.
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.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Goodreads Choice Awards Semifinalist B&N Editor\'s Pick - Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2017 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
