It is the second year of the emperor's silence - and Mars is dying.

A lowly Contract Agronomist Technician from the Bitter Waters danwei, Wei Lee's life-path is forever altered by a chance encounter with a runaway anarchist. And thus he begins his strange and miraculous odyssey, following the words and music of a rock 'n' roll demi-god across dry river and dust sea. For myth, circumstance, and a viral kiss have transformed Wei Lee from man to reluctant deity, setting him adrift in a terraformed world of cowboys, tribal Yankees and feral children. And he has been anointed savior of a red planet doomed by a dread conspiracy of religious destruction born on a machine-run green wilderness called "Earth."