Disclaimer- I received a eArc of this book from NetGalley and the Publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The pitch for this book says that its for fans of Ready Player One and Black Mirror. As someone who loved Ready Player One and enjoyed Black Mirror, I was intrigued. Here I was expected a fast paced pop culture fiesta with a close future science fiction twist. Personally I feel that the book does not live up to expectations.

In the year 2132, or there-about, the world has suffered and apocalypse and survived. The world for the most part divided up between two massive corporations Stellaris and Greenleaf who charge humanity for everything they use from toilet paper to water. Mal is a orphan scrapping by in the last battle ground between the two companies, Liberty City. She's trying to make it as streamer of a popular VR war fame while working a myriad of odd jobs. However, her primary goal isn't to kill its to find and steam the members of SpecOps, celebrity super-soldiers owned and marketed by Stellaris. After a chance encounter with the infamous 22, Mal and her friend Jenna receive a sponsorship offer, 5 gallons of water a week each for more footage of the soldiers. Their sponsor? A mysterious woman convicted of treason who things the SpecOps operatives are stolen children, not lab grown and she's looking for proof.

From there the story spirals into primarily a political thriller with science-fiction set dressing. Mal becomes obsessed with finding the truth and Jenna is will to do whatever it takes to help.

So is this really like Ready Player One, not really. You don't need to know a lot of video game or even just FPS references to understand the story. Is it like Black Mirror? Yes. Id say if anyone wanted to make this a movie or limited series, hit up the Black Mirror team.

The big question is why didn't I love this as much as I wanted to. The book most definitely had its moments. The opening pulled me in and kept me entertained. The climax was thrilling and gripping. The world building was for the most part well done. So what went wrong? I point to three things: I was not invested in Mal's journey, the pacing of the middle, and how it ended.

I honestly didn't care about Mal. She a perfectly fine main character who goes on a hero's journey from girl just wanting to survived to anti-corporation warrior. I just found it hard to believe in her journey and invest in her character development. I get that the inciting incident is really a two part mystery and Mal feels obligated to find the truth, but it just wasn't believed from where Mal started. I honestly like Jenna, Mal's best friend and
streaming partner better.

The pacing, which is something I always harp on, was ok, but the middle sections drag. They really serve to do a lot of the heavily world building work, but I feel that the amount of world building wasn't exactly nesscary to move the story forward. There was also an entire section in the 2nd half that I feel could have been cut, and the book wouldn't have suffered for it.

My issues with the ending come from this- I honestly didn't realize that this book was a stand-alone. It feels like Ms. Kornher-Stace has left herself room to write a sequel if this one does well. The ending leaves a lot hanging and I'm not really happy with it, especially with the amount of time we spend in falling action after the final confrontation.

Overall, the story is solid and can be entertaining at times. I'm sure that a large number of people will enjoy it and that a sequel will appear in a couple of years. .

Firebreak was the science fiction story I didn't know I needed. Far too much of sci-fi is men just doing cool stuff with technology, but this story turned that all on its head. Mal was one of the coolest protagonists I've read, and she, with the help of Jessa (and others), stuck up for what was right, consequences be damned. The world in this story was capitalism on a terrifying scale and it was both fascinating and heartbreaking to witness how this had tremendously affected characters on both sides of the class divide. Despite Mal's interactions with SpecOps being brief (both digitally and in person), their stories were still so powerful and made the story that much more impactful. The complex emotions of Mal and others felt very real, and, in some ways, this corporate country had deep echoes of our own. The characters in this book were captivating and the story was such an important addition to science fiction as a whole.

Corporate war is decimating the world around them. Water is rationed. Electricity is rationed. Thousands of people are living in shelters transformed out of old hotels and schools.

In a society like this, set in the future, it is only natural that society would take their lives online and utilize the advanced technologies of the times. However, there is so much more to this book than a Ready Player One-esce virtual reality game. I personally didn’t see much similarity at all between the books. FireBreak can stand freely on its own and not in the shadow of another Sci-Fi/Tech book.

I did feel that Firebreak was a little slow to get off the ground, and I was a little concerned that I wasn’t going to like it. Which was interesting because the book starts with the focus on the virtual reality game that the entire world is playing. A game that includes the NPCs (Non-player characters) that are duplicates of the real-life SpecOps who are the heroes of the war between the two warring companies - Stellaxis and Greenleaf. Companies and their sophisticated, technologically advanced toys destroy the world. Which is a cool concept!

One of the things that changed this for me was when the true plot and conflict were presented ...outside of the game. Thankfully this is where the majority of the book took place - outside the game, in real life, so you get to know Mallorie (Mal) the protagonist and her little band of friends. From the beginning it is Mal and her friend Jessa who find themselves in a dangerous position after having a very out of the blue proposition given to them. A mystery of sorts. A chance to discover the truth about Stellaxis and these SpecOps who no one ever really sees outside of news broadcasts and in-game.

The rest of this cat and mouse plot was fun. Mal trying to uncover and expose Stellaxis for what they have been doing and Stellaxis trying to shut Mal up. The scenes flowed and developed well as everything led to one of them eventually succumbing to the other. I won’t give spoilers!

There were moments when I felt there was a little too much narration and repetition, but not to a point that it bothered me or made me feel differently about the storyline. However, conclusions are a big deal to me, that and characters, but I have to say I was a little disappointed in the conclusion of this book. I was just left with so many unanswered questions.

Characters: I love that Mal and Jessa were complete opposites. At the beginning, it seems that Mal is a little more introverted and doesn’t really like people, while Jessa is much more outgoing and understands the importance of the game audience. Their differences play well off each other and their friendship is well developed, and Mal comes into her own apart from Jessa.

The other minor characters that live in the hotel room add just a right amount of support to what Mal and Jessa are trying to accomplish. They could have very easily been presented as very flat copies of each other, but there was enough individuality about them that you could tell if the author had wanted to, she could have developed them into solid, unique people.
The SpecOps that are presented are interesting. They seem very one dimensional, but there is a reason for that. So, with that in mind I think that they were developed very deliberately and thoughtfully, and that made me like them a lot. There is definitely more than meets the eye with these characters as the plot unfolds.

I appreciated the uniqueness of the plot. Taking the advanced technology and virtual reality concepts, which we are seeing a lot these days, and presenting them in a clever way. If you enjoy books like Ready Player One, I do think you will enjoy this. They are plenty different so you won’t at all feel like you are reading a book with the same basic outline. But, technology is running our world right now, and I can’t see anything changing that in the future.

This knowledge makes my favorite quote of the book all the more fitting because maybe we do need to be worried about where some of these advanced technologies are going to take us in the future. We may all be saying:

“Who knows what kind of nefarious-shit tech they have in here.”

Overall, I enjoyed it. The further into the book I got, the more I wanted to read. I just had to get through those first couple of chapters. The style is easy to read and follow. There are spots of great description and foreshadowing, but do really wish the ending went just a little further. I would definitely recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley and @sagapress for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a story about a modern revolution in a mechanized world.

Did you enjoy ready player one but wish it was dark, gritty, female lead & free of pop culture references? Have I got a book for you! This was such a stressful ride & I enjoyed every page. I love near future cautionary tales & this one was clever, original & exciting, while also being poignant & ultimately hopeful. It touched on resource scarcity in a way that felt very real after 2020, and it was easy to empathize with the characters & the difficulties inherent in experiencing a world in which there was little space for altruism... and a hero increasingly guided by it. The perfect setting for a sci fi, dystopian monomyth tale!

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️. 💫 / 5

Thank you so much Netgalley & Gallery Books for the e-Arc!

I was so pumped when I was granted a copy from Netgalley. TYSM! I started it right away and burned through it.

Spoiler free review.

It was written in a way that kept me turning pages. I had to know what was causing these people to be living in this type of dystopian world. For me, I would call it a mystery. Not a 'whodunit mystery', but a 'why is this happening mystery' that had me dying to figure it out.

There is a Virtual Reality world but it isn't the kind where you enter the avatar of an Orc or Fae and do quests. Our MC uses VR as income versus pleasure, streaming their time in the war game as they try to reach the leader board and make rare discoveries. This give them income, store credits and an audience which is a great form of communication in this dystopian world.

A few complaints, one would be that I didn't understand how they interacted with the virtual world. No keyboards, no sensors following your body movements. Seems like they lie in bed and their implants and eye lens are able to accomplish so much. I found that a bit unrealistic or maybe incomplete in details. I also didn't understand how life got so bad. We were told it was because the competing companies that owned America were warring but the citizens where our MC lives, seem to be worse off than most. Why are the citizens of Old Town suffering so much more so, than the neighboring areas? And maybe my last complaint is that the author repeated herself quite a bit. Many details were on repeat and as mentioned above other details could of been expanded on.

Our MC was refreshing. She is aromantic and asexual. Her orientation is a non-issue and not discussed but you get a good sense of it. It is awesome to have all her great traits come through without having them take backseat to the hunt for a sexual relationship in the story.

The author is definitely talented, she created a multi-layered story and I will be hunting for her past work and keeping an eye on her future work.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3978638399
Librarything: https://www.librarything.com/work/25784335/reviews/199875791
Amazon (I hit submit after this image was grabbed): https://gyazo.com/127b6b4c846f7723812801aca6e6d3d3

2.5 stars

I love dystopian stories and the premise of this book is great, but I struggled with this book.

Part of this book is about Mal gaming. I appreciate games, but I guess I don't want to watch or read about people gaming. I also didn't fully understand what was going on with the NPC.

The dialog was awkward. This book felt like a YA book that says the "F" word a lot. I have no problem with swearing, but it was overkill.

Thanks Netgalley and publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

Set in a near future US that doesn't have a government anymore, just 2 corporations that control everything. In 1 supercity, there is a perpetual war between the corporations. Stellaxis has created super soldiers (SpecOps operatives) that are the most popular thing in the city. They play a vital part in the PR of the war and are integral characters in a VR game that many play. Mallory, the main character, makes part of her living off the game while she lives in a hotel room with 8 other people and lives on meager water rations from Stellaxis. She and her roommates are all orphans of the war. But a run in with one of the SpecOps operatives during the game leads to real-world consequences for Mallory. She finds out the ops were actually kidnapped as children and turned into super soldiers. What follows is Mallory sparking the beginning of a revolution against the corporations that practically own their consumer-citizens. This was a fascinating read. Mallory is this awkward introvert that ends up doing all sorts of things that she never expected. The characters are interesting and the plot is good. I'd recommend if you enjoy dystopia-esque books with a little revolution thrown in. OH! And I really appreciated that this centered much more around friendships rather than romantic interests. It's nice to see legit friendships in books like this.

I didn't know what to expect going into FIREBREAK - I'm definitely a nerd, but I'm not a gamer, so I had no idea if it would be accessible or interesting to me - but it turned out to be one of my favorite books of the year so far! This book was delightful from start to finish, pushing ALL of my buttons (lol): intricate, twisty plot, solid and nuanced characters, fascinating and eerie setting. The story kept me deeply invested all the way through, and I finished it in just a few days. Also, I LOVED the aro/ace representation - it's such a commonly misrepresented and misunderstood identity spectrum, and I absolutely adored how Kornher-Stace portrayed the depth of feeling and relationships between her characters without romance. All in all, this is a compelling, fun, and surprisingly deep read, and I will definitely be reading more from this author.

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

I loved the book archivist wasp by the author and was excited to read her newest.  While on the balance, I have to say that I liked it, I generally loved the first half of the story better than the second half.

I really did love the ideas of corporations at war and how water rights played an issue in this book.  I loved how the corporations used the war in VR games and especially how the supersoldiers were used inside the game.  I loved the main character, Mal, and her relationship with her roommate.  I also loved those soldier superstars and their relationship with each other.

The problem for me is that the book is set into several sections.  I really enjoyed the set-up in parts one and two.  Once the truth is out, I found it to be not very interesting and the mechanism for saving the world to be lackluster too.  There were parts of part three that I did enjoy.  But once the showdown with corporate begins in earnest, it felt a bit drawn out and seriously unrealistic.  I know that be super vague but further details lead to spoilers and I do think that many readers will love how everything plays out.  There were just plot points in here that are generally not to be taste.  I wanted the VR game to have more importance and impact.  At least the ending did redeem the middle part a bit for me.

I have no regrets reading this one and will continue to read the author's work.  I need to get the sequel to the first book in the Wasp Saga and she is apparently writing a third in that world.  Plus I have another Nicole Kornher-Stace book lined up later in the year.  Arrr!

So lastly . . .

Thank you Saga Press!

I found Firebreak purely by chance. I was scrolling through NetGalley recommendations, not really sure what genre I was looking to read, but basically I wanted something to jump out at me. Literally grab me by the scruff of my neck and say, “Read me, you fool!” I couldn’t see anything immediately, but soon after I got an email from NetGalley, singing “Hello! Is it me you’re looking for?” There, slap bang in the body of email was indeed the book I was looking for.

You don’t have to be much of a political commentator to know that the world has gone to hell in a hand basket. Authoritarian, nationalist and populist governments are the norm rather than the exception in practically every economy on the planet. These are scary times, and there doesn’t seem to be a way through the gloom right now. But as bad as it all appears to be, you cannot discount the indomitable nature of humanity. Author Nicole Kornher-Stace‘s first novel for adults is full of this spirit, and it’s badly needed.

It is 2134 and what’s left of the United States of America after ecological and economic disaster is divided up between two super-corporations, Stellaxis Innovations and Greenleaf Industries. Stellaxis controls the water supply, while Greenleaf controls all elements of agriculture. The two are permantly at war with each other but have reached a stalemate with New Liberty City. Mal and her friends live on the outside, in the old town, copped up together in a hotel room. Their water is rationed; power goes off in the evenings; and they work as many jobs as they can to ensure they can pay for the things we take for granted. They have barely enough to get by, but there’s always the chance they might find themselves in a dehydration clinic if they don’t get enough water. A visit there would cost them more than they could pay. To make ends meet, and to keep themselves entertained, Mal and her friends livestream themselves as they game away on SecOps on BestLife, Stellaxis’s wargame. The more successful they are at the game, the more sponsorship they get, coming in the form of cash, weaponry for the game, and credit for water. A chance meeting with one of Stellaxis’s Non-Player Characters (NPC), known as 22, brings Mal and her best friend Jessa in contact with B, a mysterious new sponsor who tells them the true origins of the NPCs.

Firebreak begins in the middle of a livestream and once you settle in and get comfortable with the pace and environment, Nicole throws in a conspiracy that changes the nature of the story and characters. Mal isn’t what you may call a sociable person; she leaves the talking to Jessa, who’s like the manager of their partnership. They’re a duo, with each bringing their special qualities to the table. Jessa narrates their adventures online while Mal racks up the points with kills and bravado. But all this changes when they come to the attention of Stellaxis, and that’s when their lives and the lives of their friends are put in danger.

A good novel, whatever the genre, lives or dies by its characters and character development. Mal and Jessa are introduced as fully-formed individuals and over the course of Firebreak grow in ways they probably thought not possible. All they want to do is live to game another day, but they’re not selfish people. Everything they have, they share with their friends, and this becomes important as the book nears its climax. This selflessness has its rewards. All throughout, Nicole Kornher-Stace treats us to action scenes that don’t hold back on violence or consequence. Our heroes are bloodied but unbowed. Nicole has created a frightening world, one which should serve as a lesson to us all: we are one major disaster away from everything we hold dear and take for granted crashing to the ground around us.

Firebreak is an exhilarating and exciting read, replete with vibrant and conflicted characters, in a world that is both real and unreal. It could be our future. Pray it’s not.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers of Firebreak for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Nicole Kornher-Stace’s novel is on sale now.

This book reads like a corporate war manga as told from the perspective of the plucky ace/aro civilian sidekick who's the bridge between the corporate super soldiers/heroes and the public kept in the dark about what the evil megacorps are doing, both to the super soldiers (called SpecOps here and given only numbers as identifiers) and to the general populace. Mal is your typical 22nd century 20 year-old, long orphaned in a corporate war, juggling several gig jobs to survive while sharing what was once a hotel room with at least five other people. One of her jobs is live streaming play in BestLife, the massively multiplayer online game where she struggles to make a dent in the leaderboards while playing the War version (as opposed to the Fantasy or Sci-fi settings.) The War version is mapped to the real world where she lives, with the main draw of the setting -- besides providing an outlet for people jonesing for realistic violence -- being the occasional sightings of the dozen SpecOps NPCs, based on the corporate androids developed by Stellaxis, the corporation that controls water, to combat the mechas of Greenleaf, the rival corporation that controls food.

The SpecOps are both elusive and wildly popular, with fanbases and lines of merchandise both in-game and in the real world. After Mal streams a sighting of 28, she and her best friend and teammate Jessa are summoned by an unknown sponsor to get more up-close footage of the SpecOps. Thing is, their new sponsor B is convinced that the SpecOps aren't highly realistic androids at all but are actually kids Stellaxis got away with kidnapping and experimenting on because everyone who knew them had died in one of the many devastating attacks on Stellaxis land.

At first, Mal and Jessa refuse to believe B, but take the job because she's paying in water rations, probably the most valuable currency in New Liberty City. But when B disappears, and Mal runs into the real-life versions of 06 and 22 while looking for her, the two friends realize that maybe Stellaxis hasn't been telling the entire truth after all, and that there's far more to B's story than they'd previously acknowledged.

Mal makes for an unusual heroine: kind but antisocial, determined but not the smartest. Her crush on 22 is never really explained, but she has a hard time explaining herself generally. And honestly sometimes who can explain a crush! Her strongest trait is the fact that she'll push herself past the point of exhaustion in order to do what's right, even in the face of overwhelming odds (with my one quibble being that anyone who regularly hikes up and down 6 flights of stairs on the daily has no business calling themselves out of shape, not unless it's a struggle every time.) Fortunately, Mal is surrounded and supported by some real badasses, including the irrepressible Jessa, as she sets about fomenting a revolution and getting to the bottom of what Stellaxis is doing both to New Liberty City and to her beloved 22.

The social commentary was easily my favorite part of this book, as Nicole Kornher-Stace criticizes the idea of corporate-owned nation-states and the ways in which capitalism and fascism intersect. I also loved that she emphasizes a lesson I've only learned in the last year or so, that the adage "a poor craftsman blames his tools" is as much smug bullshit as "money can't buy happiness." Bad tools are a handicap in the same way that modern poverty is: not only do they make you think you're a bad craftsman/undeserving person, they also actively discourage you from trying harder and discovering your true potential. Good tools can be life-changing, and anyone who pretends otherwise is protecting entrenched interests at the expense of everyone else.

That said, Firebreak does suffer from the fact that Mal often feels more like a supporting character than a main. I loved the #OwnVoices representation but found Mal's awkward, antisocial personality difficult to mesh with. And that's fine! She'll definitely connect with lots of people who aren't me, and the ideas and plot of the book otherwise are both thought-provoking and entertaining, tho it certainly helped to keep in mind the manga concept as I read.

Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace was published May 4 2021 by Saga Press and is available from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9781982142742">Bookshop!</a>.

Welcome back to the not-so-distant dystopian future, the genre that reliably offers the worst vacation destinations. In this one, corporations control everything from water and agriculture (it's terrorism to access either on your own) to the internet and healthcare. Yeah... I barely see a difference from the here and now, myself. In the supercity New Liberty, two corporations carry on an urban war between mechs and super soldiers with bystander customer-citizens suffering through all the collateral damage.

Mal is getting by on multiple jobs to afford enough water, but her dream is taking she and her best friend Jessa's streaming full time. They play BestLife in a war game that imitates reality, going so far as to include real world celebrity super soldiers as NPCs, a marketing coup for the corporation Stellaxis. Mal and Jessa are hired to gather information on these non-player characters in-game while streaming, and the whole corporate house of cards comes tumbling down (slower, but still).

Mal was a great protagonist. She's unsure of herself and antisocial but does her best to help people in need. She's aro/ace, and the book has no romantic plots to be seen. It's all about friendship and found family, those we choose to fight for and protect. The video game elements were awesome from a gamer's perspective. I'm not sure of the approachability if that's not your wheelhouse. I loved the distinction between video game and real action sequences because while the scenarios could be similar, Mal's reactions and the author's descriptions were noticeably different, as they should be.

I think this book has excellent commentary on the trajectory of capitalism and the importance of speaking up and using collective action to resist. For the first part of the book, the mystery of everything propelled me forward. At a certain point after most of the big reveals, the focus is on more of a protracted action sequence as Mal reacts to this new information and decides how to both use it and disperse it. This is when I started to drift a bit because things were more predictable once the full framework was in the open.

I also want to be upfront and say that I don't think I was in the right headspace for this book at the time I read it. Dystopian novels are rough for me in this regard because I appreciate the societal critiques even as I'm pushed under by the emotional burden of the overlaps with daily life. So basically, if you're similar to me, you're forewarned. If this is a genre that you love or the type of thinking you want to pursue more, this is a high quality read that I hope you'll enjoy.

FIRST IMPRESSION:

When I came across Firebreak, I was craving some good science fiction after reading a whole slew of romance and fantasy. Firebreak‘s absolutely gorgeous cover caught my attention straight away and the comparison to Ready Player One sealed the deal.

THE STORY:

The story is set in a corporate, capitalist future where huge corporations like Stellaxis Innovations and Greenleaf Industries rule the world. Mallory is one of the countless orphans that resulted from the gory and ruthless corporate wars, living in Old Town in a cramped apartment with eight other tenants. When they aren’t doing jobs to earn enough water, food and resources, they are hooked on to the game SecOps.

Things start getting interesting when Mal and her friend Jessa get a mysterious sponsor who starts whispering about a missing young girl who might be connected to the SecOps in a shocking way. The story follows Mal as she navigates the virtual and real-world in an attempt to figure out the truth while staying alive.

THE CHARACTERS:

Mallory as the main character is one of my main favourite bits of Firebreak. She is initially the reluctant hero who gets entangled in a horrifying corporate conspiracy but she grows to an impressive level by the end of the book. I also found it interesting that the author revealed she’s an aromantic and asexual character though it’s never outright stated in the book. Personally, I haven’t read of any main characters that fit that description, but I found it gave the story so many more layers and depth!

Mal’s relationships are quite easy to keep track of. I loved her relationship with Jessa, her fellow VR partner and her real-life partner-in-crime. Their loyalty and the dynamics of their friendship were very simple but spoke volumes about how close and loyal they were to each other. I am very happy with how Mal’s circle of friends grew as the story progressed! I’m such a sucker for found families!

Lastly, the last remaining SecOps agents! I feel like I can’t say much since that would spoil a good portion of the story, so I’ll keep it vague as possible. I love them. I was surprised by how attached I got to these strangers along with Mal. They were the heart of the story, in my opinion, and I will read this book over and over for them.

THE PLOT:

I think Kornher-Stace was refreshingly ruthless with the storyline in Firebreak. I absolutely loved it! I love how she instilled heart into the story in the midst of the cold-blooded corporate warfare.

First, Firebreak‘s premise does not seem unbelievable at all. The future presented by the author was so believable, it is chilling. I love that Mal, an orphan who isn’t that different from anyone else in that universe, got involved in a deeper conspiracy by purely chance. We got to see the reality of an everyday person in that world warped by the realities that she uncovers, and that was pretty powerful to read about.

The story is told purely through Mal’s POV and I am glad it was. It gave a very streamlined plot and really got me to feel the emotions that went through an everyday citizen whose world is thrown upside down.

Ultimately, Firebreak‘s plot was way more intricate than I could have ever imagined when I started reading the first page! I am very impressed with the direction the author took this story in!

THE WORLD-BUILDING:

Firebreak has a good chunk of its story set in a VR game, and I found this a bit confusing at first. But I caught on real fast and totally loved it! The author herself said on Goodreads that she has written everything in a way that even a non-gamer can follow along, and I can personally vouch for that. I found it interesting how she managed to break down that world while not making it too big an info dump.

Kornher-Stace’s corporate capitalist world is very believable too. I was intrigued from the beginning because let’s admit it: world-building is one of the strongest aspects of a dystopian. It compares our current reality to a possibility that might spring up in the next couple of years or decade. I love the amount of detail the author had thought through and built on to project her version of this future on the readers. It’s an impressive feat and I love the story all the more for it.

THE THEMES:

The author’s version of a capitalist future is bound to leave the reader with a chilling after-taste when they are done reading Firebreak. It is a horrifying possibility that this book thoroughly and unbendingly exploits, and I am all here for it!

I love how the author built up the themes of community and friendship. There is a huge snowball effect that moved through the whole story, which brings together various people who might not have met otherwise, and builds relationships that left me in tears by the end of this book. Yes, literal tears!

And I think it goes without saying that when science is involved, so is ethics. The author used different people and their differing viewpoints to illustrate the abstract nature of ethical dilemmas, and, as someone who has studied medical ethics for years, I loved it!

FINAL VERDICT:

How can I ever imagine re-reading this masterpiece without ending in tears? I’ll probably read it over and over again for the tears LOL! Firebreak was such an unexpectedly clever and spectacular science-fiction standalone! I would recommend this to anyone who loves good science fiction because it is possibly one of the best I have read so far!

The United States has been taken over & is now ruled by 2 corporations, Stellaxis & Greenleaf, which are at constant war with each other. Mallory lives in the ruins of New Liberty City, known as Old Town. Here she is bunked with other young adults, working odd jobs & dealing with the aftermath of war & rationed water & food by the Stellaxis Corporation.

Stellaxis has a group of super-soldiers that are named only by numbers. The super-soldiers are the equivalent of celebrities in this dystopian society. They have fought in the great war against Greenleaf & Stellaxis sells all their merch in the corporate stores. Stellaxis has also created an MMO game, SecOps, to keep the population at bay with online versions of all the soldiers. Players compete against each other in a virtual version of New Liberty City to get to the top of the daily leader board to be allied with & control a super-soldier until they are booted from the top spot on the leaderboard. Everyone streams their games in the hopes of landing sponsors to get better in-game gear to improve their rank as well as real-life goods such as water, food, or merch.

Mallory & her BFF, Jessa, find a presumed “dead” soldier wandering around in the game, resulting in their stream going viral. They receive sponsorship from a mysterious sponsor that wants more than just entertaining gameplay. Mallory is tasked with investigating the circumstances & background of another one of the soldiers that have died in real life. Throughout the course of her investigation, Mallory unwittingly becomes the face of an uprising against Stellaxis corporation.

What I liked: Firebreak is a wild ride. The dystopian world that is created by Nicole Kornher-Smith has a familiar feel but is incredibly unique. It is well written & the pacing of the plot is on point. I never felt bored or that there was filler that wasn’t integral to the story. As a gamer, I found the gaming aspect realistic & incredibly relevant to the current day Twitch & social media influencer world we live in.

What I didn't: I needed more backstory. This is a selfish ask as the book probably would have hit 1000 pages to include all the things I wanted to know. I wanted to know how the corporations take over the US government. I want to know more about Mallory. I want to know more about the soldiers. I want to know what happens next.

I’ve read several reviews comparing this to Ready Player One & I have to fully disagree. The only similarities between the two are only that:
1. It takes place in a dystopian future with a poor young adult/teenager
2. There is an MMO style video game

And that is where the comparisons end. While I enjoyed Ready Player One, it was more focused on a fun nostalgia trip & the gaming aspect than the bleak dystopia of the world. Firebreak is the opposite. The MMO game in Firebreak is merely a vehicle to introduce the characters & the propaganda put forth by the powers in charge.

Firebreak is a sci-fi dystopian blend of 1984, Hunger Games & Ready Player One & would make an excellent episode of Black Mirror. The story portrays a bleak dystopian future where corporations rule & the population is forced to ration basic needs in the name of corporate warfare. I am hoping for a prequel or sequel to Firebreak.

At a glance: An orphan of the corporate war, Mallory works streaming the popular VR war game, only to find out that the supposedly “grown” celebrity super humans (which are intellectual property of Stellaxis) are actually stolen children just like her.

💥 Dramatic Ending
💜 Nomance
😭 Emotional
🌺 Friendship Goals

Read this if… you are in the mood for an action packed VR experience that has a ton of care put into every sentence. And if you love ride or die friendships!

Diversity Representation: own voices ace/aro rep

Content Warnings: violence, kidnapping, torture, capitalism, police brutality, capitalism, language, parental loss, poverty, war, loss

Review:
Action packed, anti-capitalist, compelling, well written, easy to follow, emotional, and tense.

Oh man, where do I begin? I really loved this book. When I opened it, I thought “man this is kind of long, I didn’t realize!” And then literally this book doesn’t slow down at any point. It is packed with amazing content. This is going to be a hard review, because it’s packed with so many different amazing things that I don’t know how well I can narrow it down! This book is easy to follow and fast paced, but delightfully anti-capitalist in a way that Ready Player One wishes it was.

Firebreak follows Mal, who lives with her 7 roommates in an old hotel room, living by the rules of the mega corporation, Stellaxis, amidst a corporate war stalemate. Mal and her best friend Jessa are mildly successful at streaming the wildly popular war VR game modeled after the real corporate war — the war that the corporations have monetized. Everything changes for Mal and Jessa when they get contacted by a mysterious sponsor who tells them that the super human celebrities, that everyone knows Stellaxis grew in a lab, are not lab experiments at all. They’re real war orphans, just like Mal and Jessa.

I have been reeling about this book since I finished it a few days ago. It was done so well, I’m really impressed. The first thing that I just can’t get over was how much action was packed into this book. Not just action, but how so much information about the plot was weaved effortlessly directly into the action. We learned everything we needed to know for the journey through VR battles, mysterious disappearances, rebellion and secrets whispered in the garden. It never slowed down, but it managed to give us so many intricacies of plot weaved in perfectly.

The most impressive part to me was how the VR was so perfectly a part of the story. It wasn’t difficult to follow whether we were in a digital world or the real world, even though they basically look exactly alike!! But not just that it was easy to follow the distinction (a huge feat in writing, I think), but I was most impressed that the virtual world and the real world paralleled each other so much. Not just in looks (that is blatantly stated), but in action! The real world of the book felt like a video game as well once the action was ramping up. Somehow Nicole managed to parallel the virtual world and the real world in so many ways while making the differences very clear the entire time. Incredible!

This book is filled with small moments that make big statements. It was absolutely stunning. From the corporations strictly owning the water supply but giving out brain implants for free, how important and life saving libraries can be, to the platonic M/F crush that Mal has for 22. I was truly stunned at how much care was placed in every bit of this book, every moment meant something, and I was really impressed the whole time.

Summing it all up:
Firebreak was truly incredible. It was everything I could have hoped for in a book. It was full of action but never missed a moment to make a statement on the important things. I’m truly impressed at what this book was able to accomplish without feeling weighed down at all. Absolutely wonderful!

While Firebreak was an interesting read it wasn't an edge of your seat read.. I found it kind of odd that many of the things that moved the story along were just kind of dropped along the way. The profanity was overused and seemed to be there for profanity's sake, rather than being needed for the story.

Still, it was a decent story so I give it 3 stars.

I enjoyed how this story started. It was like starting mid story. No back story to begin with. It gave time to get to know the characters before learning the circumstances of the apocalyptic world they lived in.
There were some elements that would have made the book even more enjoyable had they been better developed, like Mal the main character, but since it was a super fast, high conflict book, I don't think it deterred from my enjoyment of the book.
The glimpses of humanity within each of the numbered operatives, strengthened the story even more. There were several emotional moments in the book that helped me relate more to the dire situations that Mal continued to find herself in.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of this book and giving me the opportunity to read this amazing book.

I absolutely loved this book. It had me gripped from the first chapter and I feel if I wasn’t busy with work the past couple of days I could have easily have read this in 1 sitting. I kinda wish we had a little more background information on some of the characters but it was amazing regardless.

Firebreak was a refreshing read in that there was absolute zero romance in this apart from a mention of Mal’s crush for 22. I can’t tell the amount of books I’ve read this year that all have an element of romance and it didn’t really hit me until I read this.

Nicole kornher-Stace did an amazing job with this book and it’s the first of her books that I’ve read so I’m looking forward to diving in to her other works and possibly adding another author to my ‘top authors’ list.

I 100% recommend to this to anyone and everyone. Definitely a book I would re-read and one that I would absolutely buy if I didn’t receive the ARC! 🤩

Oh my goodness! I finally started reading this yesterday and I couldn’t put it down. It’s absolutely marvelous, believable beyond anything, and totally scary. The author paints the world and characters so unbelievably amazingly. I really wish I could follow along with them for a bit longer but understand also how well done the ending was. Definitely glad it read it.

This fucking book!! I AM SUFFERING AFTER THE ENDING 😩😩

Somewhere in the far future, two mega corporations rule over the supercity New Liberty (Picture: Capitalism run rampant). Mallory doesn't want for much: enough water to keep her kidneys from failing, more time/money to dedicate to the virtual game BestLife, not having to work multiple jobs alongside her 8 other roommates so they can afford their room.

Mal loves being able to play BestLife and catching glimpses of the celebrity SecOps NPCs which are based off Stellaxis's SecOps operatives. But when Mal is pulled into a conspiracy theory, she finds out the SecOps operatives weren't created by Stellaxis, but are children stolen from the war and augmented into the perfect super soldier.

This is another example of why I love sci-fi. The worldbuilding, the social commentary, the characters. All of it worked seamlessly to pull my into this world and I never wanted to leave the story. I don't think I'd actually want to live in New Liberty though because it is a bit depressing and terrifying to imagine.

Mal was an easy character to relate to. I really loved that throughout the whole story she's still her introverted self and she doesn't have to change that about herself to be a hero. The other thing I loved was her friendship with Jessa. It was just the best. Mal is also aroace, though the word is never used. There was sort of a vague statement about how her crush on 22 isn't of the romantic kind.

I loved getting to know the operatives a bit. I wish we got to know more about them. I also wish the ending wasn't so open ended because I AM SUFFERING FOR IT. Regardless, I loved this book so much.