There's no such thing as coincidence, only order. Like a series of falls down a precipitous staircase, Harlan Smith loses everything—his wallet, his job, his grip on reality… but everything he has lost pales in comparison to what he's about to find. Scooped up by a greasy con man, Harlan is unwittingly thrust into the Antwood underworld of guilds and relic-seekers wherein bizarre neighborhoods past, present, and future converge within an increasingly surreal landscape. Harlan must employ his freshly-realized talent of "ordering" things to piece together obscure clues in pursuit of an elusive grail dubbed "the Big One," and along the way rescue a fugitive with dark secrets of her own. In a world of quirky characters and unforeseen twists involving everything from irate dramaturges, dyspeptic ex-employers, and a not-so-secret sect of Librarians (capital "L"), there is no choice but for Harlan to push forward, into the wild—or else get swallowed up by the hungering jaws of chaos on his heels.