Lister gazed out of the porthole and catalogues the series of disasters that had led him to this point in space and time: the bad decisions, the poor career choices, the unreliable friendships that had led him here — on a prison ship bound for the most inhospitable penal colony in the outer cosmos... and all he'd ever wanted was to be a soft metal guitar icon. This is the beginning of the third and eagerly awaited red dwarf novel where Lister starts out by searching for his Doppelganger and ends up having the future of the human race on his shoulders.