The Dream of Perpetual Motion

Summary:

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.

Staff Review:

I have sat down to write this review on numerous occasions.  Always I have failed.  If I merely describe the steam punk plot with a Shakespearean twist I miss the whole point.  When attempting to describe the immense philosophical insights I received from this book I find myself prone to hyperbole.  The only course left to me is my reading narrative.
After fifty pages, I called my sister and demanded she read this book with me. Half way through the book I began questioning everything I thought about art, possibility, and unicorns.  When I finished the book, I called my sister and after an hour and a half conversation still could not begin to describe exactly what this book was about or identify something as simple as the author’s main point.  Six months later, I consider this perhaps the most
thought provoking book I have ever read.
If I were to offer a suggestion, never read this book.  Instead, put it on your reading list.  You might even put a star next to it.  Let this book represent the next great read, a book that will change your life as it did mine if only you would let it.  Let it forever represent Christmas Eve anticipation.
If, however, you are brave then read this book.  Risk disappointment.  Risk achieving your dream.

-- by Mollie H.