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toggle_fow 's review for:
Firebreak
by Nicole Kornher-Stace
This took a while to get off the ground, but when it did, it was good.
The plot centers around Mal, a girl struggling to make ends meet in a post-United States dystopia controlled by two warring mega-corporations. She makes part of her living by gaming in a super-advanced virtual reality MMORPG world.
From this, the Ready Player One comparisons are inevitable. This is nowhere near as annoying as RP1, though. It also doesn't have the other side of the coin: that offbeat, entertaining RP1 energy. They spend a lot more time in the real world in this book, and the main character's personality is flat and matter-of-fact. Overall, that means that Firebreak is slower to grab you, but in my opinion, a more enjoyable and solid story when you get into it.
This book's game features SecOps characters: unique, massively overpowered NPCs that are based off actual SecOps operatives in the real world. There's a whole fan subculture of hunting them, and following them around like superheroes. The real story starts about thirty-five percent in, when Mal runs into a SecOps fighter in real life.
From there, a cascade of action, corporate lies, intrigue, tyranny, cover-ups, and revolution just start building. It's good and interesting and absolutely kept me reading. The best part, though, is the gradual humanization of the SecOps fighters as we meet them more and more. I kept expecting Mal and 22 to have met before as children, or something to explain her interest in him, but there was no backstory and in the end I was fine with that.
There are only about two or three big game sequences, which makes this a lot less of a "gaming" book than RP1, but honestly it's better that way. I love gaming books, but this was better as a revolution-in-real-life book, because all the stakes were in the real life part of the story. If you can work past the slow start, this book is worth it.
The plot centers around Mal, a girl struggling to make ends meet in a post-United States dystopia controlled by two warring mega-corporations. She makes part of her living by gaming in a super-advanced virtual reality MMORPG world.
From this, the Ready Player One comparisons are inevitable. This is nowhere near as annoying as RP1, though. It also doesn't have the other side of the coin: that offbeat, entertaining RP1 energy. They spend a lot more time in the real world in this book, and the main character's personality is flat and matter-of-fact. Overall, that means that Firebreak is slower to grab you, but in my opinion, a more enjoyable and solid story when you get into it.
This book's game features SecOps characters: unique, massively overpowered NPCs that are based off actual SecOps operatives in the real world. There's a whole fan subculture of hunting them, and following them around like superheroes. The real story starts about thirty-five percent in, when Mal runs into a SecOps fighter in real life.
From there, a cascade of action, corporate lies, intrigue, tyranny, cover-ups, and revolution just start building. It's good and interesting and absolutely kept me reading. The best part, though, is the gradual humanization of the SecOps fighters as we meet them more and more. I kept expecting Mal and 22 to have met before as children, or something to explain her interest in him, but there was no backstory and in the end I was fine with that.
There are only about two or three big game sequences, which makes this a lot less of a "gaming" book than RP1, but honestly it's better that way. I love gaming books, but this was better as a revolution-in-real-life book, because all the stakes were in the real life part of the story. If you can work past the slow start, this book is worth it.