In the shifting sands of the desert, near an unnamed metropolis, there
is an institute where various fellows come to undertake projects of
great significance. But when our sort-of hero, Percy Frobisher, arrives,
surrounded by the simulated environment of the glass-enclosed dome of
the Institute, his mind goes completely blank. When he spills something
on his uniform--a major faux pas--he learns about a mysterious shop
where you can take something, utter the command "same same," and receive
a replica even better than the original. Imagining a world in which
simulacra have as much value as the real--so much so that any
distinction between the two vanishes, and even language seeks to
reproduce meaning through ever more degraded copies of itself--Peter
Mendelsund has crafted a deeply unsettling novel about what it means to
exist and to create . . . and a future that may not be far off.