Stephen Glass is a staff writer for the respected current events and policy magazine The New Republic and a freelance feature writer for publications such as Rolling Stone, Harper's and George. By the mid-90s, Glass' articles had turned him into one of the most sought-after young journalists in Washington, but a bizarre chain of events - chronicled in Buzz Bissinger's September 1998 Vanity Fair article - suddenly stopped his career in its tracks.

Two centuries in the future, when pollution has forced humans to abandon Earth in favor of cramped space stations, scientist Devon Adair hijacks a spacecraft and sets out with a band of followers in search of another planet that will offer a brighter, more normal future to children like her son, Ulysses. Joining Devon and Ulysses are mechanic John Danziger and his daughter, True; team physician Julia Heller, who has her own secret agenda; Alonzo Solace, a pilot; Yale, a cyborg; and Morgan, a craven government agent, and his wife, Bess. The voyagers find their planet, but their ship crash-lands on the wrong side of the globe, forcing them to attempt an arduous and dangerous trek to their ultimate destination, New Pacifica.