Time bandits

The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

By Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland (William Morrow; 768 pages; $35)

Finding a new wrinkle in time travel is a difficult task. In their new book, “The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.,” Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland devise a premise that feels both familiar and fresh, mixing magic and science to pleasurable effect.

When Melisande Stokes, an adjunct professor in Harvard’s Department of Ancient and Classical Linguistics, meets Tristan Lyons, she has no inkling that he is a military intelligence operative who will change not only her life but the very course of history.

Tristan works for DODO, the Department of Diachronic Operations, and he has a set of ancient documents for Mel to translate. The texts hint that magic is real and was once practiced widely — up until 1851, to be exact, when all the world’s technologies were brought together for the Great Exhibition in London’s Hyde Park.

In her journal, Melisande writes, “Tristan’s hypothesis therefore held that this coming together, this conscious concentration of technological advancement all in one point of space-time, had dampened magic to the point where it fizzled out for good.” The deal seemed to have been sealed in Konigsberg, Prussia, with the first successful photograph of a solar eclipse.

Given its possible military applications, Tristan intends to reinstate magic in the modern world. All he needs is to build a device known as an Ontic Decoherence Cavity and find a practitioner of magic (i.e. a witch) to travel in it. Unfortunately, once they succeed, neither he nor Mel anticipate all the paradoxical complications attendant upon moving individuals through time and space, from being stranded in San Francisco during the Gold Rush to unleashing a band of marauding Vikings on a Walmart to causing disastrous tears in the fabric of reality.

Stephenson has many sterling qualities — a playful sense of humor, a willingness to tackle big subjects with accuracy and rigor, a facility with thriller plots that contain wellhidden surprises. These traits are all on display in “The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.” He and Galland, author of “I, Iago” and a former dramaturg at Berkeley Repertory Theater, work so smoothly in tandem that the seams of their collaboration don’t show. (Though it’s likely that he provided the contemporary tech-speak and she the chapters set around the Elizabethan Globe Theater.)

“The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.” is a high-stakes technofarce with brains and heart, likely to be enjoyed by anyone willing to lift its more than 700 pages. Although the narrative door is left wide open for further volumes, the book ends with at least some semblance of a satisfying resolution.

Gork, the Teenage Dragon

By Gabe Hudson (Knopf; 380 pages; $24.95)

Gabe Hudson’s new novel is much like its title character and teen narrator — goofy, eager-to-please and a bit annoying.

Hatched on Earth but now an inhabitant of the Planet Blegwethia, Gork, the Terrible, is a dragon unlike the ones featured in “Beowulf ” and “The Hobbit.” His horns are just two-inch stubs, but his heart is freakishly big. He identifies more with Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield than with Smaug. As he notes at the start of the book, “So, if you’ve come here hoping for yet another tale wherein we dragons are portrayed as nothing more than a bunch of vile wyrms, well then you can do us both a big favor and buzz off.”

“Gork” takes place on Crown Day, when each male member of the senior class at WarWings Academy must win the love of a female dragon and make her his Queen for EggHarvest. To fail is to be sentenced to a lifetime of slavery. Gork has his eye on “luscious chick” Runcita, even though she’s the Dean’s daughter. As he rushes around campus in search of his true love, Gork, whose nickname is “Weak Sauce,” receives help and encouragement from his best friend, the female robot/dragon Fribby, while being actively undermined by his evil grandfather, mad scientist Dr. Terrible.

A former editor at large for McSweeney’s and the author of the story collection “Dear Mr. President,” Hudson seems to be taking cues from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels and Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” with perhaps a smattering of Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Campbell and Mark Twain thrown in for good measure. If Gork’s narrative voice can be a little overbearing and repetitive over the course of nearly 400 pages, chalk it up to adolescent exuberance.

Anyone who has ever sat through a teenage rom-com can chart the arc of this narrative, but the fun is in the gonzo, sci-fi/fantasy details. Sweet-natured Gork faces deadly threats and learns lessons about love, poetry, and his own strengths and weaknesses. By the time he returns to Earth for the final battle, only the hardest-hearted reader will begrudge him his moment of glory.

Dear Cyborgs

By Eugene Lim (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 166 pages; $14 paperback)

Don’t let Eugene Lim’s “Dear Cyborgs” fool you. Short in terms of word count, the slim volume by the author of “Fog & Car” and “The Strangers” is stuffed with more complex ideas than many books three times its size.

“Dear Cyborgs” is structured as a series of sometimes nesting, sometimes interrupting monologues, the speakers of which aren’t always clearly identified. The shifting perspectives allow Lim to switch moods, subjects and topics abruptly, lending the book a sense of unsettling unpredictability.

In the framing narrative, two Asian American teens — one named Vu, the other with his given name unspecified — bond over comic books in suburban Ohio. The narrator defines that period of his life as “an in-between time, eleven to fifteen, when I’m not quite a child and yet not an adult.” But growing up largely unnoticed by the predominately white denizens of their town confers some commonality between them. Reading and drawing superhero comics together “is a way to kill time during those boring hours of invisibility,” until the day when the boys finally lose touch with each other.

Meanwhile, in what may be a parallel universe or an alternate future, a group of superheroes meets in their downtime for drinks, Thai food or karaoke. They also discuss protest art and more extreme forms of civil disobedience. Although they battle supervillains such as Ms. Mistleto, some of their stories involve real revolutionaries and historical figures, including Black Panther Richard Aoki and performance artist Tehching Hsieh, famous for grueling installations that last an entire year.

Late in the book, one member of the superhero posse talks about his participation in a riot in San Francisco’s Presidio, where Google buses were overturned and torched. One disabled vehicle bore graffiti that read, “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”

That sentiment seems to operate throughout “Dear Cyborgs.” Acts of rebellion don’t always work, the book suggests, but they are still necessary and worthwhile in the face of inequality.

Various characters and concepts from throughout the novel converge in the final chapters. The ultimate message of “Dear Cyborg” remains open to interpretation, but adventurous readers will be glad they teamed up with Lim.