Dreaming In Smoke by Tricia Sullivan

Kalypso Deed is a shotgun, riding the interface between the AI Ganesh and human scientists who solve problems through cyberassisted Dreams. But she's young and a little careless; she'd rather mix drinks and play jazz. Azamat Marcsson is a colorless statistician: middle-aged, boring, and obsessed with microorganisms. A first-class nonentity - until one of his Dreams implodes, taking Kalypso with it.

Now Ganesh is crashing, and nothing could be worse. For on the planet T'nane, it is the AI alone that keeps the colonists alive, eking out a grim existence in an environment inimical to human life. To save the colony, Kalypso must persuade Marcsson to finish the Dream that is destroying Ganesh. But Marcsson has gone mad, and T'nane itself has plans for them both that will alter their minds-and their world - forever.

Tricia Sullivan (1968 - )
Tricia Sullivan, born in New Jersey, received a music degree from Bard College and a Master's in Education from Columbia University. She taught in Manhattan and New Jersey before moving to the UK in 1995. Her novel Dreaming in Smoke won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1999 and Maul was shortlisted for the same award in 2004. Sullivan's partner is the martial artist Steve Morris, with whom she has three children. They live in Shropshire.