The Dream of Perpetual Motion

[Dave Monroe]

The Dream of Perpetual Motion
Dexter Palmer

St. Martin's Press, March 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-55815-4, ISBN10: 0-312-55815-5,
6 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches, 352 pages
Hardcover $24.99

Imprisoned for life aboard a zeppelin that floats high above a
fantastic metropolis, the greeting-card writer Harold Winslow pens his
memoirs. His only companions are the disembodied voice of Miranda
Taligent, the only woman he has ever loved, and the cryogenically
frozen body of her father Prospero, the genius and industrial magnate
who drove her insane.

The tale of Harold’s life is also one of an alternate reality, a lucid
waking dream in which the well-heeled have mechanical men for
servants, where the realms of fairy tales can be built from scratch,
where replicas of deserted islands exist within skyscrapers.. As
Harold’s childhood infatuation with Miranda changes over twenty years
to love and then to obsession, the visionary inventions of her father
also change Harold’s entire world, transforming it from a place of
music and miracles to one of machines and noise. And as Harold heads
toward a last desperate confrontation with Prospero to save Miranda’s
life, he finds himself an unwitting participant in the creation of the
greatest invention of them all: the perpetual motion machine.

Beautifully written, stunningly imagined, and wickedly funny, The
Dream of Perpetual Motion is a heartfelt meditation on the place of
love in a world dominated by technology.

http://us.macmillan.com/thedreamofperpetualmotion