Bradbury brilliantly recreates the climate of the 18th century and Diderot's journey to Russia to "enlighten" Catherine the Great. And the Diderot Project itself becomes a quest to recapture a lost world and illuminate our own.

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.