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

by Neal Stephenson

How’s Chinese sound?” “Depends on the dialect.” “Ha,” he said without smiling. “Linguist humor. Pretty lame, Stokes.”

Of low value was space/time-shifting, such as teleportation, which was viewed as a laborious leisure-time diversion across all witch populations.

“In Japan, still today, there are tsukimono-suji,” said Oda, as casually as if he were discussing lunch. “Witch families. Witchcraft is considered hereditary—matrilineal—and I don’t know what kind of magic they claim to do, but the witch identity remains.”

Three and a quarter centuries after nineteen innocent people were hanged for no reason, a bunch of New Age types whose concept of witchcraft had zero in common with the seventeenth-century concept of witchcraft decided to set up shop right by the graves of the victims. What the fuck. I have no tolerance for sloppy logic like that.

“Did your friends come through with the liquid helium?” I asked. Certainly the first time in my life I had uttered that sentence.

Something was about to happen now. I’d no idea what, but I knew that it was history in the making, and I was present for it and not grading papers, and that was extremely satisfying.

This is like asking why doesn’t a blind person know what blue smells like.

“You want to send me back in time?” I heard myself say, not really sounding like myself. “Well, not permanently,” he said. “I’d miss you too much, Stokes.” God damn that grin of his. And he even roughed up my hair, the bastard. “When do we leave?” I asked.

To be really useful, it will take an immense amount of computing power.” With an almost impish smile, he added, “We’re gonna need a bigger quipu.”

The Fourth Crusade was an epic clusterfuck a comic-opera misadventure a tragic saga with farcical elements.