To do this, he enlists a mad scientist, the crooked studio owner, a jazz tuba player, a cowboy, two fabulously stupid movie stars, and a real live ocean-crossing Viking.

Barney Hendrickson is a mediocre movie-maker with no prospects, and his employer, Climactic Studios, is about to go out of business, particularly as the owner, L. M. Greenspan, has systematically looted the corporation.

Hendrickson takes over the machine, turns everything up to maximum, and sends Greenspan's Cuban cigar three seconds into the future, burning out the circuitry in the process.

Hendrickson aims to make a historical movie in the past, with a minimal crew, a handful of actors, and all the other parts filled by extras recruited (hopefully for wampum and beads) from the local people.

His first script is Viking Columbus, about the founding of the Vinland settlement, obtained by sending Chinese-American scriptwriter Charley Chang back to a barren Devonian Catalina Island for a month.

With Ottar as local guide and interpreter, paid in bottles of Jack Daniel's, they move an entire sound stage into the past and begin filming.

Ottar hits the beach and digs in while the cameras roll, then the crew jumps forward a year to give the colonists time to build the settlement and stockade.

Hendrickson is all set to walk into Greenspan's office empty-handed, when he is stopped by a surprise visitor—a future version of himself, carrying a finished copy of Viking Columbus and sporting a blood-stained bandage on his left hand.

Hendrickson #1 realises how the film can be completed in time: once they return to the present they can take as long as necessary in post-production, then jump back to before the deadline with the finished product.

The novel ends with Greenspan planning to produce a historical film about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, shot on location in 1st century Judea, while a horrified Hendrickson tries to talk him out of it.