Eddie Royce is an up-and-coming science fiction writer with a terrible secret: he cheats.

He knew he'd get caught, of course. Eventually. But not like this. When disaster finally strikes, it strikes big, and Eddie is confronted by the worst person imaginable: his idol, the SF master, Chester Blackwood.

To Eddie's great surprise, however, Blackwood has secrets of his own, and instead of outing him, the master story-teller quickly embroils Eddie in a real-life mystery of time travel, beautiful women, and Hollywood gangsters. But then Blackwood disappears, so if Eddie wants to keep both the fame and the girl, he's going to have to do the one thing he's never been able to get right before: plot his way out of a crisis.

And the stakes if he fails? The very future of science fiction itself.