Orlando in the Cities

"A masterful blend of everything literature and history enthusiasts will love." - OnlineBookClub.org

"With a delicious blend of prose, verse, and poetic syntax, author Sebastian Michael takes you on a wild rollercoaster spread across two millennia through monumental events that changed the course of history. ... Highly recommended."

- Pikasho Deka, Readers' Favourite (5 Stars)

Orlando, beautiful though lazy shepherd boy on Crete, is tasked by the gods to settle a dispute: who among them is patron of the most perfect city. His journey takes him to Alexandria where he studies under Euclid, to Florence, where he sits for a portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, to London where he falls in love with a Russian princess; then, having inexplicably but assuredly turned woman, to Paris where she joins the women's march on Versailles, then to Vienna where she chooses to dress as a man while making the acquaintance of, among others, a curious Dr Freud and a very young Ludwig Wittgenstein, and finally, now once again as a man though experimenting with drag, to New York where he experiences the creative as well as destructive forces around Warhol's Factory; before, ultimately, timeless, ageless, and without gender or agenda Orlando becomes simply Orlando.

A playful literary odyssey through 2500 years of Western civilisation.