This is the story of a city located on terraformed Mars. This is a story of scandals and nightmares, time travel and religious movements, terror and the all-pervasive war of all against all. This is the story of captive mechanical angels, musicians who make rain, a mirror tachyon labyrinth that shows every conceivable future, trains possessed by consciousness, Martian tripods and cyber saints. This is the story of how strange, surprising and all-encompassing science fiction can be. This is the most unusual story of the exploration of Mars that has ever been written. This is the story of Desolation Road.