It is part of the Red Dwarf series of novels, based on the popular television show created by Naylor and his partner Rob Grant.

It contains dialogue and plot elements from the episodes Psirens, Demons and Angels, DNA, Quarantine, Emohawk: Polymorph II, Legion, Camille, and Gunmen of the Apocalypse.

Dave Lister – the last surviving human in the universe – wakes in a transport ship taking him to prison colony Cyberia, the worst place in the universe, having been found guilty of serious crimes against the GELF state and sentenced to the worst imprisonment imaginable, having been hindered by his inability to comprehend the over-complicated legal system of the GELF – and his choice of clothing, including a tie depicting a naked woman in birthing stirrups.

After his welcome by the foul and grotesque Snugiraffe, the prison commandant, he is implanted and introduced into the cyber network of Cyberia where he will be forced to live out his life in a hellish dream world of his own creation.

Naturally he spends a great deal of time considering where it all went wrong... Dave Lister awakes out of Deep Sleep on the transport ship Starbug, disoriented and confused after living the last thirty six years in a backward universe.

On their way through the 'Omni-Zone' – the pathway between the seven parallel realities – back to their home ship Red Dwarf, the crew are surprised to come across a derelict space craft that is the exact duplicate of Starbug.

Searching the ship, the crew find the duplicate Cat's disembodied head, Kryten's murdered body with his hand missing and Rimmer's destroyed light bee.

Kryten is confused, as the magistrate is clearly not dead only to learn that mystics predict crimes and the persons involved are arrested before they happen.

He is in a beautiful holiday home, wonderful food and drink are provided and Lister's original fear that his testicles had been detached is untrue.

Just as he begins settling in, he finds that there's been a mix-up and he's actually in the cyber-hell meant for a hologram named Capote who is allergic to wine and hates the architecture as it reminds him of his ex-wife.

Lister is moved to his correct hell, a dank and squalid room where everything is filthy, the alarm clock never stops buzzing and the food is disgusting.

Eventually, a deal is made; the crew will get a bunch of ramshackle droids and a virus that destroys electricity in return for Lister marrying the chief's daughter.

The Earth World President, John Milhous Nixon has learned that thermonuclear tests conducted too close to the surface of the sun have fatally weakened the star's structure, thus causing an eventual decay that will see the entire solar system die in four hundred thousand years – which will be very bad for the economy, and Nixon's re-election prospects.

After five months of this hell, trapped in a grungy dystopian city surrounded by prostitutes that look like Kochanski, soul-sapping advertisements about his parentless upbringing, endless showings of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the cinema and – perhaps worst of all – encyclopedia salesmen, he is brought out of Cyberia and given an offer; to be part of an experimental terraforming and recolonisation program.

Meanwhile, the crew of Starbug have found that the piece of paper in the duplicate Kryten's hand contained coordinates to a ship where important scientific research has been conducted.

And to make matters worse, in his checking of the alternate Starbug's crew records, a cursory examination of the alternative Lister's file reveals that, following a traumatic and abusive upbringing at the hands of his manic-depressive foster mother (as opposed to the kinder, but poorer, foster parents of the proper Lister) had developed into a ruthless, sociopathic criminal.

With Starbug damaged, the crew board the Mayflower and find several hundred vials of diverse viruses including positive ones that bestow luck on the infected for a time.

As part of his agreement in volunteering for the terraforming program, Lister is granted the use of a symbi-morph named Reketrebn to fulfil his desires with her shapeshifting and telepathic abilities.

After this, Reketrebn agrees to help Lister, but their attempt to escape results in them arriving on the same ship that would have taken them to the terraforming project, save that they are now in the control cabin rather than the stasis chambers.

Reaching the planet, Lister is reunited with the rest of the crew and McGruder finally meets his father but is devastated when told he is hardly a hero but a maintenance technician.

The evil Lister emerges from the ship and locates the rest of the crew demanding the solar-powered escape pod to allow him to leave the planet.

Suddenly Rimmer's light bee, hovering using the last of its power, uses morse code to communicate with the crew and offer to take the virus and infect The Rage with it.

After saying a final goodbye to his son, who now knows that while Rimmer may not have been the hero he was raised to believe in he is still a man to be proud of, the light bee flies into The Rage and infects it with the virus stopping its destruction and allowing the souls of the inmates who created it to rest in peace.

As Kryten, Cat, McGruder and Reketrebn leave to search for Rimmer's light bee in order to give him a funeral, Lister and Kochanski stare over the world.

Lister sadly comments that this would be the ideal place to raise a family and help to restart the human race – a dream now impossible thanks to his alternate self.