When Prof. Hughes accidentally vaporised the University of Birmingham School of Metallurgy and Materials Science, and couldn't be found afterwards, his students thought the only consequence would be the cancellation of his notoriously hard end-of-year exams.However, for first year astrophysics student Eradani, this is just the start of a fantastic (and seemingly preposterous) science fiction caper involving alien worlds, reversing spaceships, invisible trees and an annoying geographer called Andrew.And as if that weren't enough, it also turns out that the fate of the entire Galaxy rests on her shoulders...