In the year 3028 A.D., Earth is being attacked by the Drej, which are aliens made of pure energy! The Drej mother-ship destroys Earth with an energy beam just as hundreds of space vehicles manage to escape with the last of mankind aboard! One of the escapees is Sam's young son Cale, who carries with him a ring given to him by his father. Fifteen years later, Cale works on a salvage station, eking out a rough life and hating his father for having disappeared aboard the Titan so long ago. Without a home planet, surviving humans have been reduced to outer space drifters and are constantly bullied and looked down on by other space-faring races. A human captain named Joseph Korso and his pilot Akima seek out Cale and explain that he must help them find the Titan which contains a mechanism that will create a new Earth and therefore unite all of humanity. Meanwhile, the Drej wants to find the Titan so that they can destroy it...

A U.S. president's highly classified secret agent must find a fearless replacement to take over his extremely dangerous military missions.

Garland's novel centers on a young nicotine-addicted traveler named Richard, an avid pop-culture buff with a particular love for video games and Vietnam War movies. While at a hotel in Bangkok, he finds a map left by his strange, whacked-out neighbor, who just committed suicide. The map supposedly leads to a legendary island paradise where some other wayward souls have settled.