Earth’s water has been used up and real water has become rare and expensive. Most people drink a water substitute called Waterol. It’s brown and cloudy, tastes like car parts have been washed in it.

Cars are self-driving, but they’re bad drivers. instead of making their driving skills better, engineers have made them ill-tempered and aggressive. They yell at other cars, cut each other off.

The Last Man on Mars: Rod McCracken lives in a deserted boom town — the Kyrgyzite Rush is long over, and the saloons and brothels and discount towel outlets of the Red Planet are all closed. Rod is the last human. He has enough Waterol to last ten lifetimes, and a stock of canned peaches.

Rod has learned the language of the reclusive sylphlike Marsons. Their language has one phrase “Please leave me alone.”

Most food is developed from “solulized lifeform proteins” That’s bugs. Sterilized cockroach paste, to be more precise. It is made into foods people find more palatable: wild-caught red snapper, free-range bison, organic Jordanian couscous, seven-grain rustic bread.

What’s all the rage: eyelash extensions to reflect your personality, wind-talking (that’s standing outside in a breeze and mumbling incantations), bowling with explosive bowling balls (the pins scream and spray blood everywhere), public sex.