...What if these present-day versions of the Olympian Gods suddenly had their abilities? Today's celebrities are involved in many causes, political and otherwise. What if they suddenly had the power to back up their convictions? Wars would be decided quickly. The rain forest would become off-limits. AIDS would surely be cured...

These new gods are called Stars, and one of them does indeed cure AIDS--unfortunately, the cure comes six days too late for a woman named Evelyn. Her only hope is a lunatic named Dr. Gonzo.

A hybrid Star, Dr. Gonzo is a literal amalgam of Hunter S. Thompson and Doonesbury's Uncle Duke. Gonzo is the one who sets out on a quest to bring Evelyn back from the dead, cajoling or conning various Stars into helping him. He's part Bacchus, part trickster god, a modern-day Coyote crazed on peyote and Night Train.

Providing a rational counterpoint and some gentle good humor is his sidekick, Albert Einstein. Dead celebrities are called Legends, and are more like mass-produced ghosts than gods. They pop up anywhere they seem to fit in--you can't go into a Burger King without hearing, "Thank you. Thank you verramuch..."

The Stars get their powers from aliens called the Linkers, who trade them in exchange for performances, videos, books ... because the Linkers are a race addicted to art. The surviving half of a symbiotic race, the Linkers actually get high from exposure to imagination. The more imaginative the art, the better the buzz ... but one particular form of art is so potent it's like crack to the Linkers, and has been banished from the planet. They just can't handle the surreality of cartoons... .

Gonzo, however, being the drug authority he is, knows somebody must have a stash somewhere. And once he finds it, he knows he can find a Linker corrupt or greedy enough to trade for some real power--as long as the other person hunting for the 'toons doesn't get them first. Someone by the name of Charles Manson ...