The world of Styx, or the Hive. Patchwork. Terrible. Bloody. But it grants a person who has gained immunity to infection by the parasite immortality and gives them supernatural abilities. They call them Gifts of the Hive.
Styx is constantly, at fixed intervals, swallowing entire landmasses from other universes along with the people living there. Someone becomes “immune,” while most turn into living zombies that eat their own kind. By the will of unknown forces, an aging poet—an utter failure and a drunk from a provincial multi-newspaper—ends up in this world. To survive, he begins studying it and trying to understand it. He has accepted the Hive as his new home, and the Hive hasn’t rejected him.