The Dream of Perpetual Motion
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.40 (877 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0312680538 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 356 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-01-31 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Debbie Lee Wesselmann said After the Age of Miracles. Set in the early twentieth century, after "the age of miracles," Dexter Palmer's steampunk novel and the city of Xeroville teem with technology rooted in the knowledge of the day: mechanical men instead of robots; answering machines that record on drums of wax; flying cars that rattle; teaching helmets lowered by cables and operated by hand cranks; and a zeppelin powered by the first (seemingly) perpetual motion machine. Amid this, the narrator of Dexter Palmer's debut novel tells how he grew from a shy, awkward boy to a prisoner aboard the Chrysalis, high above . voice more than makes up for a few flaws--recommended B. Capossere The Dream of Perpetual Motion, by Dexter Palmer, has a great opening. Past a poetic and ominous first few lines, we get the narrator telling us "If my reckoning of time is still accurate .the one year anniversary of my incarceration aboard a high altitude zeppelin designed by that most prodigious and talented of twentieth-century inventors, Prospero Taligent. It has also been a year since I last opened my mouth to speak. To anyone. Especially my captor because it is the one thing that she desires, and my silence is the only form of protest that remains to me."Gr. The Uses and Abuses of Language This is a difficult book to review. It's so dense with ideas and I enjoyed it so thoroughly that trying to do it justice in a few hundred words is very intimidating.It's an intensely intellectual, yet trippy, steampunk take on Shakespeare's The Tempest, but it's also a rumination on the uses and abuses of language - the inescapable power of words over perception and, paradoxically, their impotency.When young protagonist Harold Winslow wins an invitation to the birthday party of Miranda, the sequestered and mysterious daughter of the city's most powerful man, inve
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. 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. Imprisoned for life aboard a zeppelin that floats high above a fantastic metropolis, greeting-card writer Harold Winslow pens his memoirs. Beautifully written, stunningly imagined, and wickedly funny, Dexter Palmer's The Dream of Perpetual Motion is a heartfelt meditation on the place of love in a world dominated by technology.
From AudioFile Palmer's debut novel creates a world of bizarre inventions and complicated relationships. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine . Dufris narrates with a tinge of melancholy in his voice as characters react to the phantasmagoric world created by the mad inventor. Dufris provides a sure and steady delivery. This imaginative tale of love is both heartbreaking and head-twisting. Imprisoned aboard the giant zeppelin "Chrysalis," powered by a perpetual-motion machine, Harold tells his story. Genius inventor Prospero Taligent and his lovely daughter, Miranda, entrance young Harold Winslow as he pursues a career as a storyteller. Narrator William Dufris's wondrous acting ability is tested on almost each page as the story is full of flashbacks and flash-forwards. R.O