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From bestselling author Neal Stephenson and critically acclaimed historical and contemporary commercial 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 sign a nondisclosure agreement 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.

Neal Stephenson is the bestselling author of the novels Seveneves, Reamde, Anathem, The System of the World, The Confusion, Quicksilver, Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Zodiac, and the groundbreaking nonfiction work In the Beginning ... Was the Command Line. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Nicole Galland is the author of six previous novels: The Fool's Tale; Revenge of the Rose; Crossed; I, Iago; Godiva; and Stepdog. She lives on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Laurence Bouvard is a professional actress and writer based in London and is chief executive of the North American Actors Association. A native of Wellesley, Massachusetts, she also acts in the United States.

Charlie Thurston is an actor and Earphones Award-winning narrator. He holds an MFA in acting from Brown University / Trinity Rep and has appeared on stages across the country with Trinity Repertory Company, Chautauqua Theater Company, Creede Rep, and at Riverside Theatre and Redmoon Theater, among others. His favorite roles include Edgar in The Completely Fictional-Utterly True-Final Strange Tale of Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen in The Long Christmas Ride Home, Tuzenbach in The Three Sisters, and Tony in You Can't Take It with You.

Shelley Atkinson is originally from Co. Tipperary. She has been based in the UK since graduating from Arts Educational London Schools in 1997. She has worked in all areas of the business, predominantly in theatre, in both lead and character roles.

Laural Merlington is an audiobook narrator with over two hundred titles to her credit and a winner of multiple Earphones Awards. An Audie Award nominee, she has also directed over one hundred audiobooks. She has performed and directed for thirty years in theaters throughout the country. In addition to her extensive theater and voice-over work, she teaches college in her home state of Michigan.

Joe Barrett, an actor and Audie Award and Earphones Award-winning narrator, has appeared both on and off Broadway as well as in hundreds of radio and television commercials.

Will Damron has won several Earphones Awards and been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. He has had acting roles off-Broadway and on stage and screen throughout the country.

Luke Daniels, winner of sixteen AudioFile Earphones Awards and a finalist for the Audie Award for best narration, is a narrator whose many audiobook credits range from action and suspense to young-adult fiction. His background is in classical theater and film, and he has performed at repertory theaters around the country.

Robert Fass is a veteran actor and twice winner of the prestigious Audie Award. He has earned multiple Earphones Awards, including for his narration of Francisco Goldman's Say Her Name, one of AudioFile magazine's Best Audiobooks of 2011.

James Anderson Foster, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, has narrated audiobooks for a variety of publishers, across nearly all genres, both fiction and nonfiction. In 2015, he was a finalist in three categories for the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences Voice Arts Awards, for mystery, science fiction, and fantasy.

Tavia Gilbert is an acclaimed narrator of more than four hundred full-cast and multivoice audiobooks for virtually every publisher in the industry. Named the 2018 Voice of Choice by Booklist magazine, she is also an Audie Award nominee and the recipient of numerous Earphones Awards, a Voice Arts Award, and a Listen-Up Award. With frequent inclusion on best of year and annual top ten lists, she is a trusted and increasingly sought-after actress for work across every genre, from children's and YA, to literary fiction, nonfiction, and genre fiction. Audible has named her a Genre-Defining Narrator: Master of Memoir, and Library Journal said of her, as close as you can get to a full-cast narration with a solo voice. She is a producer, singer, photographer, and a writer, as well as the cofounder of a feminist publishing company, Animal Mineral, with fiction and nonfiction focusing on relationships, love, and identity.

Arthur Morey has won three AudioFile Magazine Best Of Awards, and his work has garnered numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and placed him as a finalist for the Audie Award. He has acted in a number of productions, both Off-Broadway in New York and Off-Loop in Chicago. He graduated from Harvard and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. He has won awards for his fiction and drama, worked as an editor with several book publishers, and taught literature and writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed.

James Foster was born and raised on the West Coast, and even though he's lived in the Midwest for over a decade now, still considers Oregon home. Nominated for Voice Arts Awards for best audiobook narration in the science fiction, fantasy, and mystery categories, James has been praised for his conversational delivery and ability to sound exactly like the voice you were imagining in your head.

David Stifel trained at the Yale School of Drama and has worked for such noted film directors as Steven Spielberg and Danny Boyle.

Kate Udall is an experienced stage, television, and film actress. She has starred in numerous Broadway and off Broadway plays, including The Waves and Night of the Iguana. Her television credits include appearances on Law & Order and Blue Bloods. A graduate of Yale University, she lives in New York City.