Gottfried Hattinger takes us on a journey of discovery into the sometimes curious world of machines. Whether it's mechanical puppet theaters, confession machines, baroque spectacle machines, automatic trumpeters, or electronic household pets: it's not always useful inventions and technical innovations that are gathered here in abundance, but also experiments, artistic interventions, and machines that never existed. The panopticon of technology has room for all tinkerers who encapsulate their ideas in mechanical wonders—from everyday devices to absurdities and craziness of the genre. Thus, the realm of mechanical fantasy is inhabited not only by geniuses, artists, inventors, and engineers, but also by gods, devils, poets and philosophers, utopians, charlatans, and quacks. In this sense, this highly entertaining book, illustrated with more than 800 images, offers a geographically and temporally comprehensive overview of fantastic and realized machines and devices. At the same time, Gottfried Hattinger guides us through an astonishing collection of hybrid world designs, figments of imagination, and obsessions that have been produced by human creativity over millennia.