Dominic Frontera, a representative from ROTECH's planetary maintenance division, arrives to inform the inhabitants of Desolation Road that their settlement will soon be destroyed thanks to an incoming ice comet.

Part of the overall terraforming initiative and intended to add needed moisture into the atmosphere, the comet's trajectory was set with no knowledge of the town's existence, and cannot be stopped.

Dr. Alimantando is desperate to complete his long-gestating formula for time travel to save the town, and the greenperson appears unexpectedly to provide the final calculations.

Dr. Alimantando vanishes back in time to register Desolation Road as a town, effectively negating the threat of the comet, though the residents dream of the alternate timeline.

Cory Doctorow called Desolation Road "one of my most personally influential novels", describing it as "an epic tale of the terraforming of Mars, whose sweep captures the birth and death of mythologies, economics, art, revolution, politics.

"[1] Doctorow also compared the novel to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (1992–1996), and noted that it pays homage to the David Byrne album The Catherine Wheel as well as the works of Ray Bradbury and Jack Vance.

[1] He wrote of Desolation Road, "Spanning centuries, the book includes transcendent math, alternate realities, corporate dystopias, travelling carnivals, post-singularity godlike AIs, geoengineering, and mechanical hobos, each integral to the plot.