Professor John Durden is caught in a 33-year time loop along with all the other denizens of the flat earth he lives on. They have been placed there by dark entities called archons for the "greedy siphoning of their energy". The archons use human negative emotions like a drug that they cultivate like a crop. John Durden must find a way to escape, but cannot do so without the help of the rich and histrionic Vanessa Marti, a woman who is determined to remain in this world until she is perfect.