When you go through a parallel universe, what waits for you on the other side?
Sam Tolliver and his five companions find many things familiar in the land of Melenca--but others radically different, as they search for an elusive spiritual figure, Mentor Perroso, who may be able to tell them how to return home. Will they find him before they're trapped by spreading environmental damage caused by the fuel powering vehicles or the strange new gas that's killing many; or Perroso is abducted by crazed cultists devoted to a sociopathic con man, Flimsel Flammer, who has managed to get himself elected chief administrator of Melenca; or Sam and the others are caught by agents of an entity that hunts down migrants from nearby lands? And will Sam be able to keep his small band together amid disagreements while he sorts out his feelings for his lovely companion Allie Siddell and those for the beautiful Melencan aiding them, Katera? Find the answers in this sharp-edged satire of American politics and society set in a strange land beyond our universe.