Sask-E is a planet that Verdance, a major terraforming company, has big plans for. Their business is acquiring unoccupied planets and changing their environments to suit their customers' needs. Marketed as a return to humanity's heritage, Sask-E's environment is being carefully designed to imitate Earth's during the Pleistocene. Annalee Newitz's novel The Terraformers begins by introducing Destry, who was genetically engineered by Verdance to work as an Environmental Rescue Team Ranger, helping to terraform the planet and keep its environment in balance. Her life is shaken when she makes an incredible discovery—an entire city of people believed by the company to have died off centuries ago. Spider City's inhabitants are seeking to negotiate a treaty with Verdance preserving their right to self-governance and ask for Destry's help. In the process, Destry is torn between the ideals ...