The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (D.O.D.O. #1)

by Neal Stephenson

Jealousy at once bred with rage inside of me, and made such an inward clamour that I heard the next bit of the conversation as through a hailstorm.

When you just wing it, you are aware of the risk and the uncertainty, and inclined to be more cautious. When you have a high-tech tool giving you an illusion of omniscience, I am concerned that it will lead to greater risk-taking.

It was classic witch real estate: close enough to the village to allow commerce and social contacts but sufficiently remote to afford separation and privacy.

The conventionally accepted explanation for this is that storytellers have a power of imagination that makes them good at inventing counterfactual narratives. In the light of everything we’ve learned about Strands at DODO, however, we can now see an alternate explanation, which is that storytellers are doing a kind of low-level magic. Their “superpower” isn’t imagining counterfactuals, but rather seeing across parallel Strands and perceiving things that actually did (or might) happen in alternate versions of reality.

For surely the destruction of magic is not only bad for witches, but bad for Ireland and such like nations that are relying heavily on magic for self-defense from oppressors.

“For each district of the treasure-town, A Roman rune written, raised high For each lane lying below it, An Arabic number to know it. “South face the glass gates; the fat fool Northward led me, shouldering them aside Greeting a guard, vested in blue, Scarcely strength to stand had that old ogre. “To our right, ranks of clashing carts Waiting to be wheeled and weighed down By Fatlanders too frail for fardels. Sight-seers only, we spurned these. “Till-keepers’ tables cluttered our view. Beyond them, still north-questing, Kiosks and cairns covered the place, Towers of trifles.

Science has brought good and evil to the table, in equal measure. I have watched that happen. To have the world without scientific developments is not to have a better world or a worse world—just a different world from the one we know.”