Player Piano develops two parallel plotlines that converge only briefly and then insubstantially, at the beginning and the end of the novel. The more prominent plotline follows the protagonist, Dr. Paul Proteus (referred to as Paul), an intelligent, 35-year-old factory manager of Ilium Works. The secondary plotline follows the American tour of the Shah of Bratpuhr, a spiritual leader of six million residents in a distant, underdeveloped nation.
