Future mars. First novel. Runner-up for the Arthur C.Clarke Award.
"Miles from anywhere, but only one step short of Paradise, somewhere on the line from here to Wisdom where the trains never stop, there's a town that shouldn't exist at all, even in the Twelfth Decade when miracles happen every day. In fact, it's so tiny and faraway that it's only known because of the stories they tell about it.
"It all began thirty years ago with a greenperson, you see. But by the time it all finished, Desolation Road had experienced every conceivable abnormality on offer, from Adam Black's Wonderful Travelling Chautauqua and Educational 'Stravaganza (complete with its very own captive angel), to the Amazing Scorn, Mutant Master of Scintillating Sarcasm and Rapid Repartee, not forgetting (as if anyone could) the Astounding Tatterdemalion Air Bazaar, Comet Tuesday, and the first manned time trip in history." [jacket blurb, UK hbk, 1990]
"Extraordinary and more than that". --Philip José Farmer.
"Quite surreal. And actually a very nice story". --Henry W.Targowski (in Mark/Space , 1995).
