One young woman faces down an all-powerful corporation in this âprofoundâĻresonantâ (NPR), all-too-near future science fiction debut that reads like a refreshing take on Ready Player One, with a heavy dose of Black Mirror.
Ready Player One meets Cyperpunk 2077 in this eerily familiar future.
âTwenty minutes to power curfew, and my kill counterâs stalled at eight hundred eighty-seven while Iâve been standing here like an idiot. My health bar is flashing ominously, but Iâm down to four heal patches, and I have to be smart.â
New Liberty City, 2134.
Two corporations have replaced the US, splitting the countryâs remaining forty-five states (five have been submerged under the ocean) between them: Stellaxis Innovations and Greenleaf. There are nine supercities within the continental US, and New Liberty City is the only amalgamated city split between the two megacorps, and thus at a perpetual state of civil war as the feeds broadcast the atrocities committed by each side.
Here, Mallory streams Stellaxisâs wargame, SecOps on BestLife, spending more time jacked in than in the world just to eke out a hardscrabble living from tips. When a chance encounter with one of the gameâs rare super-soldiers leads to a side job for Malâlooking to link an actual missing girl to one of the SecOps characters. Malâs sudden burst in online fame rivals her deepening fear of what she is uncovering about BestLifeâs developer, and puts her in the kind of danger sheâs only experienced through her avatar.
Author Kornher-Staceâs adult science fiction debutâFirebreakâis a âfight song in praise of fierce friendship and the strength to endureâ (Amal El-Mohtar, Hugo and Nebula Awardâwinning author of This Is How You Lose the Time War) loaded with ambitious challenges and a city to save.
Sciencefiction en fantasy