England, 1989. Star Trek fan Gordon Medley has the organisational skills of an earthquake, and the decision-making skills of an old sock; in short, he’s exactly the sort of person you wouldn’t entrust with anything remotely important, especially a magical orb that could save the entire planet from its imminent destruction. But that is exactly what his mysterious colleague does. Gordon knows the orb is just a snooker ball, and that the colleague is clearly suffering some sort of breakdown. Still, humouring him, Gordon takes the ‘orb’ and vows to protect it. But when an ex-pupil, now an adult, comes back into his life, clonks him on the head with a wok and leads him up a ramp and into a spaceship which has landed in his back garden, Gordon realises that either he’s the one having the breakdown, or that something out-of-this-world really is happening. Or both. And if that’s the case, the snooker ball he’s been entrusted with must actually be the vitally important orb his colleague said it was. Which is a shame, because Gordon can’t remember where he put it. And so, Gordon Medley, clumsy and vacant though he is, becomes embroiled in an epic tale of planetary destruction, out-of-control super- computers, and time-travel. And throughout his voyage of self-discovery, he is faced with a question which he cannot begin to answer: why are all the people he meets so similar to the cast of Star Trek?