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In alternating narratives, Bradbury brilliantly recreates the climate of the eighteenth century―as Diderot journeys to Russia at the behest of Catherine the Great for discussions on the nature of the late-18th-century world, as well as the twentieth century academic milieu.

In October 1993, a novelist is invited to go to Stockholm and Russia to take part in what is enigmatically referred to as the Diderot Project. In Stockholm he is joined by various other members of the project―including an academic, a lustful opera singer, and a Swedish diplomat. On the journey to Russia more is revealed about the great Enlightenment writer Denis Diderot―the son of a knife maker in Langres, who went to Paris and compiled the Encyclopedia, a book that changed the world.