It is carnival time on Mars, but Tabitha Jute isn't partying. She is in hiding from the law, penniless and about to lose her livelihood and her best friend, the space barge "Alice Liddell". Then, the intriguing Marco Metz offers her some money to take him to Plenty, and then the adventure begins. Winner of both the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel of the year and the British Science Fiction Association Award for best novel of the year—the only book ever to win both prestigious British awards.

In an attempt to escape the solar system, renegade space jockey Tabitha Jute and her crew of escaped criminal psychopaths direct their planet-sized starship toward the unexplored Proxima Centauri, but they are targeted by a hijacker.

Captain Tabitha Jute is past the point of no return. Stripped of her command and her dignity, she has lost control of the huge alien starship called Plenty, and forefeited the devotion of the myriad lifeforms traveling with her in its dingy caverns and labyrinthine corridors. Now they all lie captive beneath the glowering red twin stars of Capella, awaiting the pleasure of the parasitic Guardinas. For the Guardians, who once gave Plenty to humanity, are now scheming with high-tech tyrants called the Seraphim. And Captain Jute and her followers are caught in the middle of a terrifying experiment in which the human race is the raw material. Her only option is to risk it all on one last headlong flight into the heart of a dying star system in a desperate attempt to uncover the final secrets of the Capellans. And as the Guardians will soon learn, Tabitha Jute doesnt want mauch . . .she only wants Plenty.