The whole story takes place on Mars, which was first settled around 2030 in the timeframe of this series (see Barnes's novels Orbital Resonance and Kaleidoscope Century).
a major solar flare occurs, and because Mars' thin atmosphere and weak magnetic field provide less protection against high-energy particles than on Earth, this event overloads many electronics systems on Mars, as well as damaging the "exosuit" (space suit) systems of many people who are outdoors and otherwise unprotected, so that several members of the party are killed, including Telemachus.
Teri and Alik, a boy in the party, re-invent celestial navigation and reach the nearest railhead, where there is a working phone, only to find that the disaster is planetwide and help will not be coming soon.
Publishers Weekly recommended the novel to "anyone interested in vivid near-future worlds, engaging characters and moral questions with no simple answers.
"[2] Don D'Ammassa of the Science Fiction Chronicle wrote that it "is one of a growing number of recent novels to deal realistically with the colonization of that planet, and it's one of the better ones.