Two years, seven months, and thirteen days... That's how long Gregor's family has waited for news of his father. Everyone has given up hope: his grandmother, who occupies the only air-conditioned room in the house; his mother, who has to work double shifts to support the family; and Gregor, who, at just 11, always ends up babysitting his two younger sisters. On a particularly hot New York summer, Gregor has to stay in the city while Lizzie, his middle sister, enjoys a camping vacation. Taking care of his little sister Boots, his greatest "fun" will be going down to the basement with her and taking the laundry to the communal laundry. But if Gregor thought this would be a night like any other, he was very wrong. While trying to sort the light clothes from the dark ones, Boots runs back and forth after her ball. And then, playing among the machines, she finds an air duct, which sucks the siblings into a strange subterranean world. After a long fall, Gregor and Boots arrive in a frightening place and are rescued by very strange beings: gigantic, super-evolved cockroaches who, far from human slippers, have created a society in the Underdark. But they are not alone: the friendly cockroaches take the two Surface dwellers to Regalia, a vast city built by humans who, centuries ago, followed the prophet and explorer Bartholomew of Sandwich into the vast expanses of land beneath the Surface. Suddenly, Gregor discovers that the Regalians believe he is a legendary warrior, whose coming was foretold in the most enigmatic of Sandwich's prophecies. Now, despite his protests, the boy must lead a group of austere Regalians, silent bats, giant cockroaches, and mysterious spiders on a quest that could either free his father and the entire Underdark from the rats' terrible tyranny or lead to the complete annihilation of this incredible parallel universe hidden beneath New York City.
