DODO is obviously an acronym. The text is lousy with them, but that is--I guess, in some ways--the point. There isn’t too much I can get into without spoilers so I’ll keep my comments superficial. The story obviously follows the rise and fall of DODO and is focused on the original developers of DODO, which starts out as a small research project and grows to worldwide proportions over a few short years.
The premise is interesting, as you might expect from a Neal Stephenson story, but I'm not sure the story really comes off as well as some of his other endeavors. I don't have any frame of reference for Nicole Galland, so I can't comment on how it compares to other things she has written.* The story revolves, as I said, around the original developers of DODO, and as a young man and woman, thrown together in this crazy story, I could pretty quickly see that some kind of interest could develop between them, and as I expected, the sexual tension is pretty thick at times.
If I had to guess, I think the story may suffer a little bit from tropes: new project results in amazing scientific discovery, and isn't the government always showing up, talking about weaponization? Isn't there always an archetype cast-of-characters that shows up in a story like this too, like the tech geek, and the yes-man, and the alpha-type who wants to take over? It just felt like I've been here before, and even though these tropes were hung on an interesting story idea, they ended up covering over the interesting bits with their sameness.
I'll keep my eye out for the Neal Stephenson story, and as this may be probably is my first experience with Nicole Galland, she'll get the benefit of the doubt. Because I'm like that. If I had know ahead of time, I may have skipped this one.
* A quick look at Galland's website shows that she writes some historical fiction, perhaps similar to Stephenson's historical fiction. Is that the connection between the two authors and this story? I guess so.
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