Firebreak

For our next buddy read, Erynn and I are trying out a science fiction novel. Firebreak by Nicole Kornhern-Stace is a new release from just a few months back. We have read a lot of books together and I am surprised that we are just now picking up SciFi! Take a look at the synopsis and content notes and then dive into our part-by-part discussion.

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Firebreak
The Reading Discussion

For starters, what piqued your interest with this one, Erynn? Ariel had mentioned this book to me when it was available as a Read Now eARC and that’s how I ended up getting it! I haven’t read a lot of scifi this past year.

The blurb is really what caught my attention. I’m a big fan of VR stories and the comparison to Ready Player One secured my interest! I find that this genre (books with a gaming element) are often told from a male perspective so that the story has a female main character was new for me and definitely part of the reason I wanted to read it.

Now that you mention it, the female POV is a good point. It is an angle I am enjoying. 🙂

Super excited to talk about this book! It was such a good choice for a buddy read and I’m not sure I would have heard of it otherwise. 

Part 1 of Firebreak: Toy Soldiers

Firebreak plugs us into a virtual game play from the very start. I really liked being plunged into this game and learning about how it interacts with the outside world – the power curfew, the 1000 kill score, the mysterious SecOps that literally haunt the game. From the synopsis it wasn’t quite clear what they were but I am glad that the first part of the book developed the storyline in an effective manner and had me hooked.

Agreed, we really were just thrown right into the world! I admit I did find the part about the SecOps a little confusing at first as well, but I was enthralled with the story right from the beginning, and things did clear up pretty quickly. I wanted to know more about the game, the streaming, the operatives, and everything!

Jessa and Mal have a nice working relationship and how they came to be together in the same hotel speaks to the atrocities of the world and the war around them.

The atrocities of war were a recurring theme in the book. It was stunning learning about the history of the world, why things were the way they were–AND finding that there were still people like Jessa and Mal who were willing to question the status quo once enough information was presented to them that it should be questioned. In a lot of ways, their relationship with the people around them reminded me of current-day world politics, people banding together to do what’s right even when they’re uncertain of exactly what consequences they will face.

Erynn do you find the idea of states being run by corporations plausible? Though it isn’t explained very well at this point in the book (and we will see how it goes from here), I don’t quite understand the rationale of giving up government rule and having an open monopoly.

That was one of the aspects of the novel that I questioned as well. While I do actually find it plausible, I don’t think it’s ever explained in the book why that happened, at least in a way that was satisfactory to me. I think that’s a pretty important detail that really serves as the foundation of the book, which was unfortunately lacking in my opinion.

The reason I find this plausible is because in our current capitalist society, money is power. It’s physical power, political power, it’s gunpower. If the world continues at its current trajectory, I really do see it as being possible that large corporations could take control. However, I believe people and governments are also starting to realize this and take action against these potential outcomes so they (hopefully) don’t happen like this.

After their encounter with one of the SecOps in the game and getting footage of them up close, Jessa and Mal have caught some people’s eye and are able to get sponsors. The situation around water is so sad and this seems like such a dreary world to live in as we learn more about the water supply, the kinds of jobs people do, the curfew and more. The game has become the life of so many people. Not to mention the lens implants.

It’s really a reflection of our current world but turned up to the extreme on a global scale. There are already communities and disadvantaged populations (even in Canada) that don’t have ready access to clean water or have to pay enormous fees to receive it. While it’s definitely dreary, you can really see where the real world issues come into play.

Mal and Jessa are obsessed with streaming, trying to use that to make a living so they can stop all their other crappy jobs. However, streaming seems to have its own downfalls. There was once, a long time ago, where I tried to get into streaming video games! But I don’t really have the personality for it, hehe. Do you think you would want to be a streamer in this kind of world, where it would really be a matter of survival?

I don’t think it is much of a choice at this point. Anyone who can get good at games and use it to make a living should be playing the game and I would too if I had to use it to survive. I see the advantages of having that virtual life but it does take a toll on personal life. With Mal and Jessa, they were partners and friends and socially, the game would limit who you would interact with if you really want to make a profit out of it.

Part 2: Company Man

This was a fascinating part and I wasn’t prepared for all the live action, separate from the RPG itself. Mal’s obsession with 22 is fascinating – it seems to me like she has a link to him that she has no memory of how it was established. What did you think of 06 and 22 and how they differ from their game versions?

My eyes were glued to the page reading this part of the book! I think I stayed up until 4 am once to zip through this section. Honestly, I liked that the in-game and out-of-game versions were different. It seemed more realistic that way, like how a lot of NPCs in games tend to be lacking in detail to make them “real.” Right beside Mal, we got to experience how she began to acknowledge the in-game versions and out-of-game versions as completely different, even when their core personality traits were the same. Her development from seeing them as action heroes to real people was really well done.

Was there something in this part of the book that stood out to you? I felt that there was a lot of tension in this part and it showed the gravity of what they have gotten themselves into. You go digging into a conspiracy and bad things happen if you get too close to the truth.

At this point, I think Mal is starting to realize just how deep she’s in, too. It’s a scary situation to face up against a company that literally controls your life, especially once she realizes there might be some truth to the claims after all. But now she and Jessa are all alone, and they need to navigate that situation, the knowledge they’ve gained, and without putting a larger target on their backs. (But that’s what the next part ends up being about.)

The concept of the SecOps was explained well in this part and I really liked getting some history. Having grown up with social media, it was refreshing to read about how companies control what we think and feel and how every move is calculated to help them gain something. What are your thoughts on Stellaxis and their SecOps operations so far?

I found it especially mind-boggling to find that the SecOps didn’t even know they were famous, or about the video games! This is only hinted at right now, but it really does show just how deep Stellaxis’ control over these super soldiers, and the population, goes.

With this and the critical situation that Mal is put in, we get to see how powerful Stellaxis and Greenleaf are, and what kind of entity it is that Mal will eventually end up facing up with. For example, how they blatantly profit off of their citizens by claiming that fresh water is rarer than it actually is, how the two corporations aren’t afraid to send mega-death-robots (what are they called, city killers? yikes) out into a populated urban area and threaten hundreds if not thousands of peoples’ lives over control of the supercity.

Did it surprise you at this point of the book (or at any other) just how little value Stellaxis and Greenleaf seemed to hold over human life?

Yes and no. Yes, because without people there are no consumers and I would have expected them to take a little better care of their clients, but at the same time, there does not seem to be a lack of population so humans seem pretty disposable and replaceable in that sense. 

Part 3: Hearts and Minds

This third part was all about revolution and did a good job in showcasing how companies overextend their reach. Mal is not an aggressive person so it makes sense that she is struggling to take control of the situation. This is almost her coming of age story to figure out who she wants to be.

I think your comment about this being a coming of age story, in a way, is really important. Because today, at least in our part of the world, the only time someone really has legal control over someone else is when they’re a minor or if they sign those rights away. The law has a way of infantilizing those it wants or needs to control and, if you look back in history, this is what was once done to women, Indignenous peoples, etc.

But in the world established in the novel, most people are born without a right to drinking water, shelter, and food, which we consider basic human rights. And which Stellaxis and Greenleaf are both happy to keep under their control. What Mal has to accomplish, then, is overcoming the infantilizing that Stellaxis has done to her, and the people around her, through their propaganda, control over knowledge, and blatant lies. What is real? What isn’t real? It really is a journey of self-discovery, trying to figure out just how far she’s willing to go for the truth. Will she just risk herself, or her friends, or her community? And how far will Stellaxis go?

I think there’s a pretty clear progression throughout this part about how Mal grows in terms of what she’s willing to do and what she isn’t to see justice done in this part of the novel. What are your thoughts on how she changed and developed her opinions and the actions she took, especially once Stellaxis started returning fire?

I really liked how she developed and the experiences she had. She was always questioning but this was so extreme that she could not hide from the truth anymore. Meeting the SecOps in real life had a huge effect on her, and like every creative person out there who has an audience, she reached a point where she cared more about what she saw and the truth than pleasing other people and her safety. I really admired her for that and the risks she was willing to take. I think it also got more personal because she didn’t have any family and the stranger-turned-friends that she lived with were exactly the ones she was fighting for.

Part 4 of Firebreak: NPC

What I loved about this last part was the brutal honesty with which it was delivered. There is so much sadness there as well as the realization that battles in the short term do not prepare us for war in the future. 22 developed immensely in these last two parts and it was neat to see Mal’s idea of him evolve from a NPC to a real person.

We finally get so many answers in this part of the book. It’s crazy what the SecOps had to go through during their entire lives and just how far Stellaxis went to keep their secrets. It hurt so much learning about everything 06 and 22 had to go through, especially with how things ended up. What are your thoughts about Mal’s discovery, that she had almost been taken by Stellaxis when she was a child too?

That was fascinating and made me wonder what they were truly looking for in these kids who were chosen to be SecOps. Was it IQ? Was it physique? It was clearly not family because none of these kids had family left due to the destruction. It was a beautiful moment though for Mal to realize that she could have been SecOps. And the story ended up being how that selection changed these kids’ lives, putting one set of them in the dumps, living in horrible conditions while the others were experimented on. No one came out of this unscratched.

Honestly, I really wish the ending had been different. (Major spoilers here for anyone who hasn’t read the book!)

I wanted 22 to live. I knew with how the story was going it was basically impossible for him to survive; if he didn’t die with his crazy acts of heroism at the end, it would have been because of the horrible modifications they made to his body. But after everything he went through with the other SecOps, with 06, and with Mal, he really deserved to live a normal life, even if only for a little while.

Or, at the very least, survive long enough to make sure that Stellaxis was really done for. The ending was kind of vague in that we don’t know what happens now. Stellaxis isn’t completely done for, and it was alluded to several times that taking down Stellaxis would only mean that Greenleaf would become more powerful, and there’s no way that could be a good thing.

On the other hand, the vague ending does leave it open to the reader to interpret or make their own wishes and guesses about what’s going to happen next. Maybe after all of the brutality and dictatorship, that’s a good thing.

With that in mind, do you think there’s room for a sequel, or another way that this could have been tied off?

I found the ending to be realistic enough but I will say I wanted 22 to live too and pave a new hopeful future. At the same time, ending the SecOps for now (because who knows if the technology was preserved and would be used again?) was needed to make a point. 

After finishing the book I read some of the reviews on it and someone commented how the woman in charge of the SecOps program could have just “quit her job if she didn’t like what she was doing” but I think that critique really missed the point of the worldbuilding that’s established, especially around Stellaxis. Do you really think that she could? After everything we’ve seen Stellaxis do–they’ve disappeared people, blatantly sending mechs to slaughter citizens, experimenting on children–do you really think she was ever getting out of that situation alive? No, she wasn’t.

And really, I think that’s the gut punch. She was a monster, but I think only because Stellaxis made her one… just like the SecOps.

 I 100% agree with you! If that woman had quit, someone else would have taken her place. So it really isn’t about that character.

Reading Experience Summary & Overall Discussion

I think this book had a unique concept and the execution was quite well done. Now that I think about it, I would not mind reading more books set in virtual reality and role play. Firebreak showed us the potential of a dystopian society and how it can rely so heavily on advanced technology to keep people engaged.

Absolutely! These books are fun to read, and the best ones, like Firebreak, tend to be pretty thought-provoking. It’s scary how a lot of this technology is already in play today, just not to the extreme. While SecOps were made famous to popularize a war, we do have video games (and characters) that are sponsored by other companies, companies with agendas such as Google, Amazon, and Apple that span far beyond the reach of what their initial purpose was.

The whole idea of customer-citizens is mind boggling and I would not want to get to that point in my life where a corporation controls so much.

I think that’s a common fear. It seems to be a common trope in sci-fi that megacorporations run everything. And it’s a valid fear, too, considering just how much power people with billions of dollars have over the world.

My favourite part about Firebreak was how it was unapologetic in showing how brutal war is and the different, tragic ways that it affects people. There are those that die, but there are also those like Mal and Jessa who survive against all odds, and the kinds of trauma they have to wear every day as a result. And then there are those like the SecOps whose trauma eclipse those who simply survive.

One thing I loved about this book is that as much as it was scifi with advanced technology, it was written in a manner that I could understand it. I never felt like the author was dumbing things down for me or using words that went right above my head.

The way information was woven into the narrative was very well done. In a lot of books technical terms and explanations often take away from the narrator’s voice, but I found it was the opposite in this book–every time something was explained, it made me feel closer to Mal, like I was a tiny bit closer to understanding her based on how she understood and explained the world. I guess you can say I loved the worldbuilding, even if it did have a few flaws.

Will you pick up this book? Add to your virtual bookshelves on Goodreads and Storygraph.

Firebreak is available in stores and likely at your local library.
Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle

Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with a complimentary digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

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Thank you so much for hanging out with us today and reading our discussion of Firebreak! Let us know if the comments what you thought of this post, if you will pick the book or have already read it. 🙂 Check out the Book Review Index for more scifi reviews and Book Discussions homepage for all book discussions!

I’ll be back tomorrow with another review.

Cover image: Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash