In the early months of war in 1996, the space capsule Ledais sabotaged on its return trip from the moon, killing one person on impact and leaving three to drift in a liferaft in the middle of the Pacific. Only one of these - U. S. Under-Secretary of State, Calvert Madle Roberts - survives to seethe cliffs of an island dominated by a huge letter M.
The appearance of this island's inhabitants comes a a considerable shock to Roberts - though human, they are disfigured by bizarre forms of bestiality so that it is almost impossible to say whether they are human or animal. The sinister genius responsible for their condition is Mortimer Dart, a thalidomide victim whose fascination for human deformity has led to a series of experiments duplicating those of H. G. Wells's legendary Dr. Moreau. That, at least, is how they began.