Lewis Hyles is in a bad way: he’s trapped on an island that’s slowly tipping into the sea, hooked on a drug that causes him to see mischievous little sprites, and when he tries to bury his father, the local dragons drop a capsule out the sky, obliterating the coffin and bringing into his life Mina Almquist, a weirdo.
Well, a weirdo to Lewis, at least: her clothes are odd, her accent odder, and her determination to get to the mainland undimmed by the news that almost everyone who tries to get there ends up dead.
When Lewis further explains that the only way off the island is to perform an impossible, Wipeout-esque death-jump over the chasm for the amusement of their decadent mainland captors, Mina decides they should make the jump together. Drunk.
The Blimps Above The Mainland is about what happens when a downhearted telescope-maker finds himself in the home of his enemies and the city of his dreams. Undercover, on the run, and surrounded by an empire crashing to its knees, he must find a way to save his fragile home.