Red Dust

McAuley, Paul J. Red Dust. London: Gollancz, 1993.

"Mars is dying because the precarious balance achieved by the terraforming is failing, winter by winter the freed water gradually freezing back into the crust. The Emperor, a 'Consensus' AI, is allowing it to happen, in the interests of cleansing the solar system of human handiword and superseding the organic mode" (rev. Colin Greenland, Foundation #60 [Spring 1994]: 99-102; here quoted, 101; we depend upon Greenland for our citation). (RDE, 29/10/94)