Crypt Orchids — John Shirley

They are dropped onto a dreamlike planet whose surrealistic beauty cannot hide its grotesque reality. Fool's Hope -- a world, so stunningly bizarre, nightmares are irrelevant. Here, abductees -- both human and alien -- are pitted against a neverending succession of hellish parasites, carnivores, shape-changers, and symbiotes.

Yet the greatest enemy of all could be human. When former professor Harmon Fiskle is transformed by the Current -- a roving mutagenic force -- he is freed to pursue his megalomaniacal nature. He advocates a depraved policy of social Darwinism, and forges a grotesque alliance of Twists: men and women who have sacrificed their own humanity to become monstrous mutations of their former selves.

With an entire world at stake, only Zero can solve the mystery of Fool's Hope ... if it isn't already too late.