ISBN 0-575-05599-5 (UK pbk)

"Five hundred years after the Chinese terraformed the Red Planet, the process is in reverse. The Emperor has followed the Golden Path into a vast virtual reality universe, leaving behind hunger riots, civil war and creeping despair.

"Enter Wei Lee, a lowly itinerant worker -- and the unlikeliest Messiah since L.Ron Hubbard. Rock'n'roll fan, dupe, womanizer and holy fool, when Lee stumbles on a plot that has been spinning for decades he is catapulted into a journey that will take him from a Tibetan lamasery in the Badlands through the teeming cities, swampy waterways and vast dust deserts of Mars to a showdown at the summit of the biggest volcano in the Solar system -- and a battle in virtual reality for the future of Mars and humanity itself..." [jacket blurb, UK pbk, 1994]

"Everybody's going to Mars this year, but nobody's going as imaginatively as Paul J.McAuley... Excitement, adventure, and fascinating, unforgettable people. Take the ride -- Mars won't get any better than this." --Pat Cadigan.