Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory, the novel, builds on the story rendered in the ground-breaking concept album by Grammy Award–winning progressive metal giants Dream Theater. The novel, which has been written to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of this genre-defining record, adds new plot lines and intrigue, additional characters and motivations, as well as explanations and ideas not explored on the album. ​

Writer of Scenes from a Memory, the novel, Peter Orullian worked closely with the band through conversation and ideation in preparation to write this volume. From those interactions he began to envision ways to extrapolate the core story, build in rationale for key pieces of the Metropolis world, and introduce narrative elements to further expand and deepen the story that has become the novel.

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The book will be released on October 26th, 2024. Preorders are now open for two versions of the book—a rare collector’s edition, and a trade paperback edition. Note, the rare collector’s edition will be a very limited run, and only available through pre-order, which will run until the end of July 2024 or until we've maxed the print-run, whichever comes first. Also, for those who would like a copy of either edition signed by the author, those are likewise only available via pre-order.

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Novel Summary

 

Nicholas Santori, a sound-engineer who specializes in audio recovery, has had troubling dreams all his life. With the anniversary of his daughter’s death, those dreams have gotten worse, threatening the stability of his family and perhaps his own safety. After receiving cryptic messages about his dreams from his clairvoyant son, Nicholas seeks help from an eccentric hypnotherapist with questionable intentions. During regression Nicholas learns that in a former life he was a young girl named Victoria Page, that she was murdered, and that her case was never truly solved. Believing he can end his nightmares if he can solve Victoria’s murder, he finds retired detective Colin Murphy, who’s been obsessed with Victoria’s case since he saw her lying dead seventy years ago in the house where Murphy now lives. Together, they hope to solve the cold case, while someone is desperately trying to stop them.

 

But solving the murder is only half the story. Who was Victoria Page? Who were the brothers who vied for her attention—one an addict, gambler, and idealist; the other a politician with connections to the mob and the infamous Bugsy Siegel? Who was their father—Metropolis’s most ruthless industrialist? And how did all these inextricably and dangerously connected lives lead to the murder of a caring young girl who did nothing but share her artistic gift and treat others with an uncommon grace?

 

Orullian deftly weaves the two sides of this interconnected story across the twentieth century. From nightmares, to zeppelins, to anechoic chambers, to train heists, to mafia hits, to speakeasies, to heartfelt conversations about loss, Orullian’s propulsive imagining of Dream Theater’s critically acclaimed album Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory is by turns thrilling, suspenseful, and poignant.