If you’ve not yet read Nicole Kornher-Stace’s novels
Archivist Wasp and
Latchkey, I’d like to strongly encourage you to do so. It’s not because they’re connected to
Firebreak—to my surprise and delight, they are, though
Firebreak is a standalone—but because they’re just so good. Immersive, dark, vivid, imaginative and eerie, they follow one young woman in a post-apocalyptic world where her task is two-pronged: survive, and catch ghosts.
Firebreak is set in a world not yet turned totally apocalyptic—but close. In 2134, two corporations run what used to be the U.S. Stellaxis and Greenleaf are in perpetual conflict, and citizens are regularly caught in the middle, leaving shattered cities and families. Mallory is one of those orphaned by the war. She lives in a hotel room with a handful of other orphans, all scraping together an existence from odd jobs and whatnot, counting the gallons of water they’re allotted each week.