In October 1993, a novelist is invited is invited to go to Stockholm and then to Russia to take part in what is enigmatically referred to as the Diderot Project. While in Stockholm he is joined by various other members of the project-an academic aptly named Verso, known as The Encyclopedia, and a lustful opera singer. On the journey towards Russia more is revealed about Diderot: the son of a knife maker in Langres who went to Paris and compiled the Encyclopedia, a book that changed the world. Moving between dual narratives-Diderot himself is on his way to Russia to "enlighten" Catherine the Great, while all she wants is his magnificent library we learn how Diderot can be seen as the godfather of both the modern novel and of the computer.

Bradbury brilliantly recreates the climate of the eighteenth century and Diderot's journey to Russia. And the Diderot Project itself becomes a quest to recapture a lost world and illuminate our own, proving the novelist correct: "It's all chaos, noisy confusion. History generally is."