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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Neal Stephenson 2017
Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Neal Stephenson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008132583
Source ISBN: 9780008132569
Version: 2019-09-23
FOR LIZ DARHANSOFF
CONTENTS
To the reader:
For your convenience we have included a list of characters as well as a glossary of acronyms and terms that are unique to the D.O.D.O. world. Because the lists contain many spoilers, we have placed them at the back of the book.
N. S. and N. G.
Diachronicle
(PREAMBLE, JULY 1851)
MY NAME IS MELISANDE STOKES and this is my story. I am writing in July 1851 (Common Era, or—let’s face it—Anno Domini) in the guest chamber of a middle-class home in Kensington, London, England. But I am not a native of this place or time. In fact, I am quite fucking desperate to get out of here.
But you already knew that. Because when I’m done writing this thing—which, for reasons that will soon become clear, I’m calling Diachronicle—I am going to take it to the very discreet private offices of the Fugger Bank, Threadneedle Street, lock it up in a safe deposit box, and hand it over to the most powerful banker in London, who is going to seal it in a vault, not to be opened for more than one hundred and sixty years. The Fuggers, above all people in this world, understand the dangers of Diachronic Shear. They know that to open the box and read the document sooner would be to trigger a catastrophe that would wipe London’s financial district off the map and leave a smoking crater in its place.
Actually, it would be much worse than a smoking crater . . . but a smoking crater is how history would describe it, once the surviving witnesses had been sent off to the madhouse.
I’m writing with a steel-nibbed dip pen, model number 137B, from Hughes & Sons Ltd. of Birmingham. I requested the Extra Fine Tip, partly to save money on paper, and partly so that I could jab my thumb with it and draw blood. The brown smear across the top of this page can be tested in any twenty-first-century DNA lab. Compare the results to what is on file in my personnel record at DODO HQ
