Electric Forest — Tanith Lee

The world called Indigo turned upside down for Magdala Cled one unexpected morning. From being that world's only genetic misfit, the shunned outcast of an otherwise ideal society, she became the focus of attention for mighty forces.

Once they had installed her in the midst of the Electric Forest, with its weird trees and its super-luxurious private home, Magdala awoke to the potentials which were opening up all about her. And to realize also the peril that now seemed poised above Indigo...which only she, the hated one, could possibly circumvent.

An extraordinary incursion into hard-core science fiction by the same brilliant and colorful talent that produced THE BIRTHGRAVE and DEATH'S MASTER.