Reckless sleep - Roger Levy

When contact was lost with the colony on the planet Dirangesept the Far Warriors were sent to rescue them. Sitting in orbit above the planet controlling their autoid fighting machines by remote psi links, they thought they were invulnerable to whatever had killed the colonists. They were wrong. As hundred upon hundred of the autoids wee destroyed by what appeared to be fabulous mythological beasts the mental agony suffered by the warriors tipped their minds over the edge. And now, years later in a Britain scarred by freak geological collapses and minor volcanic eruptions, with a shadowy populations seeking escape from their grim lives via a contagious addiction to VR games, someone is killing the surviving Far Warriors.

Reckless Sleep is a supremely assured and visionary SF debut. London in the far future assumes an almost biblical air as ash from volcanic eruptions forms drifts in the streets and villages disappear overnight into fresh fault lines. There is also a superb examination of the true dilemmas presented by VR.

Combining the confident vision of Ken Macleod, the paranoia driven plotting of Philip K. Dick and a wholely original take on the SF standard of Virtual Reality this is a remarkable novel.