"How do you make sense of your life? Somewhere in London a film director is dying of cancer. His life's crowning achievement, his greatest film, would have told the story of a European village as the last hour of A. D. 999 approached, which the villagers were convinced would bring with it Armageddon. Now that story will never be told. But he's still pointlessly working it out in his head, making a film that no one will ever see. No one but us. "--Page 4 of cover.