A mildly intelligent, spider-shaped robot named Martin Van Buren has been stranded in 1982 by Thomas, his previous owner, and given a list of tasks to complete. He has vowed to do none of them, instead telling everyone who will listen that he is a super-intelligent robot from the future. Martin has met a girl in Dubuque, Iowa named Angel. She has promised him a misunderstood "party" in exchange for healing her dying grandmother who isn't actually dying but rather only dangerously gullible. Angel has discovered that Martin is not, in fact, a faith-healing little-person inside a movie prop spider, but rather, exactly what he has said he was - an artificial intelligence inside a spider-shaped robot, possibly from the future. If you haven't read the other books yet, you will only miss the relative unimportance of why Thomas has but one ball, but you will not be lost - I promise -wcb