Colonel Pyat dreams and schemes his way from New York to Hollywood, from Cairo to Marrakesh, from cult success to the ultimate limits of sexual degradation, leaving a trail of destruction, both human and mechanical, in his wake as he crashes toward an appointment with the worst nightmare of this century. An epic and hilariously comic adventure in which Pyat is sustained by his dreams, and profligate inventions, his determination to turn his back on the realities of his own origins and runs from crisis to crisis creating ever more links in a chain of deceit, suppression and betrayal...yet this thoroughly unreliable narrator becomes a lens for focusing on an uneasy brand of truth. The third book in the Pyat series, which began with Byzantium Endures and The Laughter of Carthage. Cover art by Peter Dyer.