Each story in this collection explores the limits of consciousness, both human and other.

In the title story, “The Perfect Man” (first published in Salon.com) we meet Lucy, a single woman who decides to design her own boyfriend. Pritchard may be a software program, but he has more in mind than simply pleasing his creator.

In “Sheila” (Interzone, Year's Best SF) a rogue artificial intelligence has become a God to her human followers by promising to deliver them to a more exalted state of consciousness.

“New York City Versus The World” (first published in Sybil's Garage) finds the collective unconscious of the world engaged in a fierce debate with the collective unconscious of New York City over its desire to secede from the United States. Original, suspenseful, and sharply comedic, McLaughlin’s short fiction challenges our assumptions about technology and consciousness while exploring what it means to be human at this particular moment in time.