"Witty and ingenious." -Michael Harris, Los Angeles Times

"Darton's seductive fable is a stylistic tour de force, a dazzling parable about the birth of the modern age with its terrors and promise. It unfolds as the diary of a Leonardo-like inventor, scientist, surgeon, memory expert and sexual acrobat whose inventions include explosives, anesthetics, a military airship and humanlike automata . . . reminiscent of Italo Calvino's work in its dashing mingling of history and fantasy." -Publishers Weekly

"A peculiar novel written in diary form, putatively by a famous doctor-inventor in a northern European city at the beginning of the Enlightenment. . . . readers . . . will enjoy the sheer inventiveness of the faux period language and the intellectual challenges of the narrative." -Booklist

"Darton's first novel, a curious little dip into history and fantasy, is about the fall of a European city in the Enlightenment period-told through the diary of an aging scientist . . . Tongue-in-cheek historical tale that's intelligent, learned, and of good cheer . . ." -Kirkus Reviews