An opium addict is lost in the jungle; young men wage war against an empire of mutants; a handsome young pirate faces his execution; and, the world's population is infected with a radioactive epidemic. These stories are woven together in a single tale of mayhem and chaos. In the first novel of the trilogy continued in "The Place of Dead Roads" and "The Western Lands", William Burroughs sharply satirizes modern society in a poetic and shocking story of sex, drugs, disease and adventure.