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Ian Kwee _ — Such an interesting book! I am a huge fan of Candace Fleming and her biographies!

Yury Shpak georgeshpak — It can’t be un-read. Dexter Palmer’s _The Dream of Perpetual Motion_ promised, on the back cover, to be “beautifully written, stunningly imagined, and wickedly funny… a heartfelt meditation on the place of love in a world dominated by technology,” not to mention “gorgeously surreal… exhilarating, passionate, enthralling… constantly turning, giving off more energy than it receives, its movement at once beautiful and counterintuitive.” I should have known that was too many adjectives. It turned out to be a lengthy but shallow coming-of-age/damsel-in-distress tale about Harold Winslow, an always-disappointing greeting card writer imprisoned for eternity on a zeppelin with the cryogenically frozen body of an exceptionally mad scientist, Prospero Taligent, and the disembodied voice of his daughter Miranda, who Harold claims to love even though he hardly knows the girl, having experienced only 3 or 4 brief encounters with her in the span of 30 years. Indeed, Palmer’s story is riddled with contradiction and severely misogynistic, both in the development (or lack thereof) of the female characters themselves as well as the way male characters act upon them, rather than allowing or acknowledging any amount of free will or intelligence. That part alone is exhausting. The time frame is absolutely impossible to place. There are mechanical men and flying cars and Prospero, in a matter of hours, is inventing all sorts of ridiculous tools that can shave granite like a block of cheddar cheese, and yet there are no airplanes or televisions and the populace has clearly experienced some sociological setbacks from the 2010 world Palmer was writing from. I found it more confusing that surreal. Also, literary references are sort of haphazardly wedged into the narrative in way that feels entirely meaningless and unhelpful. Prospero, Miranda, and Ferdinand (who shovels coal), among other things, make it reasonably obvious that Palmer is putting a surrealist twist on _The Tempest_, mixing it around with post-modern philosophy and sociological critique, but it feels more like he ran over the Shakespeare with a Steampunk engine (or maybe a Zamboni) and took it spiraling down a really sinister, increasingly depressing rabbit hole. He took the easiest route of connecting his narrative to _The Tempest_ – stealing the names – and I just think it deserves a little more effort. Palmer also makes an M. Night Shyamalan-style appearance at a party about half way through, which was just downright unnecessary. Also, if I wasn’t thinking it already at that point, the character Palmer, along with the annoying, pseudo-intellectual, post-modern feminist Charmaine St. Claire, certainly called my attention to the fact that I was reading a whole lot of words and very little substance. I found Charmaine’s presence as the sole depiction of feminism in Palmer’s novel incredibly upsetting and a really gross exaggeration of a bad stereotype. That said, a few salvageable bits of the philosophy and sociology shine through as you hurdle past the blatant contradiction and somewhat pretentious nature of Palmer’s writing style. I enjoyed several passages, and found it pretty easy to detach them from the droning plot. Some of them are actually quite beautiful. Here is one: "This is the time of night just before sunrise, the time that no one owns, and if you have found yourself awake and alone during this time, out in the city, outside the safety of the walls you call your own, then you know me, and you have felt what I have felt. This is the hour of the night it’s best to sleep through, for if it catches you awake then it will force you to face what is true. This is when you look into the half-dead eyes of those who are either wishing for sleep or shaking off its final remnants, and you see the signs of twilight in which your own mind is suspended. At any other time it’s better. You can do the things you feel you should; you’re an expert at going through the motions. Your handshakes with strangers are firm and your gaze never wavers; you think of steel and diamonds when you stare. In a monotone you repeat the legendary words of long-dead lovers to those you claim to love; you take them into bed with you, and you mimic the rhythmic motions you’ve read of in manuals. When protocol demands it you dutifully drop to your knees and pray to a god that no longer exists. But in this hour you must admit to yourself that this is not enough, that you are not good enough. And when you knock your fist against your chest you hear a hollow ringing echo, and all your thoughts are accompanied by the ticks of clockwork spinning behind your eyes, and everything you eat and drink has the aftertaste of rust." (248) Clearly, I can’t exactly recommend that anyone read this book, but it can’t be un-read and whether Palmer intended it or not, his writing did get me thinking in ways that could very well be useful for me to think. You never know when something will come in handy. So I’m glad I read it. My best advice if you start reading this book is that if you’re not just positively enthralled after 60 or 70 pages, you should probably stop. I can never bring myself to do so, and that is how I know that it doesn't go uphill from there at all.

Dina M _ina_arwish — It wasn't completely hateful.

Rose Ayling-ellis raylingelld130 — sucked

李 山 a189563247220384 — what an amazing life. this book shows the amazing goodness and kindness that can come out of a simple human being when God is the one leading.