The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. is brilliant, fast-paced, and will give you sore wrists because it’s a thick, heavy book, but you will not want to put it down.

An expert in ancient languages is hired by a mysterious government agency to translate some documents that suggest that magic actually once existed in the world. But the advance of science caused magic to disappear in 1851. However, the existence of a two-hundred-year-old witch and some fancy technology allow a limited amount of magic to occur in this world, and soon the language expert and others are being sent back in time to repair history. And, if they’re lucky, bring magic back to the world.

Told almost exclusively from the point of view of female characters, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. is one of the few science fiction books that I strongly recommend to my wife (who doesn’t read science fiction).

Recommendation: Buy it. It’s clever, fun, and engrossing.