It killed almost all of the adults. Now, it kills the children when they reach their late teens. It's a futuristic world where everything has broken down, and children can't fix it. They're reverting to a Lord of the Flies kind of savagery. In Florida and parts of Georgia there's a perverted kind of Christianity called Mansonism, where the children worship Christ and Charlie.
Death is the only state of grace and murder is a sacrament.
Stir-craziness is the order of the day. Technology intervenes, for good and ill. Marianne arrives on the planet still fairly young, and when they meet the aliens who already live there, she's presented with a challenge larger than any human has ever faced. Beverly is the girl he leaves behind when he is sent to Vietnam. Together, the stories of these two young people make a painfully vivid testament to one of this century's most troubled periods.