One young woman faces down an all-powerful corporation in this
"profound...resonant" (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.
"Twenty minutes to power curfew, and my kill counter's stalled at eight
hundred eighty-seven while I've been standing here like an idiot. My
health bar is flashing ominously, but I'm down to four heal patches, and
I have to be smart."
New Liberty City, 2134.
Two corporations have replaced the US, splitting the country's 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 Stellaxis's 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
game's rare super-soldiers leads to a side job for Mal--looking to link
an actual missing girl to one of the SecOps characters. Mal's sudden
burst in online fame rivals her deepening fear of what she is uncovering
about BestLife's developer, and puts her in the kind of danger she's
only experienced through her avatar.
Author Kornher-Stace's adult science fiction debut--Firebreak--is a
"fight song in praise of fierce friendship and the strength to endure"
(Amal El-Mohtar, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of This Is How
You Lose the Time War) loaded with ambitious challenges and a city to
save.
