Red Dust: Paul J. McAuley

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 despair. Enter Wei Lee, a lowly itinerant worker - and the most unlikely Messiah. Rock 'n' roll fan, dupe, womaniser and holy fool, Lee stumbles on a plot that has been spinning for decades and is catapulted into a journey that will take him from a Tibetan Lamasery through the teeming cities, swampy waterways and vast deserts of Mars, to a showdown at the summit of the biggest volcano in the Solar System. It's a battle in virtual reality for the future of Mars and humanity. Cover art by Jim Burns.