This book had two principal effects on me. One was to make me really, really want to read Shadows of the Apt. Adrian Tchaikovsky’s been one of those people in the “I’ve heard his name, and I should get to him at some point, but really I’ve got so many books to read that if I’m being honest I probably never will" category, but after reading Firewalkers he’s getting bumped way up Mount Readmore.
The other thing this book did was really, really piss me off.
Let me start with the premise. This is a dystopian book, as I seem to be reading a lot of lately. In this particular flavor of dystopia, humanity has managed to thoroughly fuck up the climate. Things generally suck for everybody, and the equatorial regions are getting hot enough that they’re basically uninhabitable. However, there are generation ships being built, to carry humanity to safety … or at least that segment of humanity who can afford it. Everyone else? Sucks to be you.
The anchor points for the space elevators to the generation ships are on the equator, however. This means that despite the general unlivability of the area there do have to be settlements there. The protagonists of Firewalkers scrape a living working outside of the shelter of the settlement to service the solar fields that keep the A/C on for the rich folks waiting to ascend the space elevator. “Firewalker” is their title, and given how freaking hot it is - daytime temps of 140F/60C are mentioned as typical - it is appropriate.
The three protagonists - kids, really, all under 20 - are Mao (the grandson of Vietnamese workers who initially built the elevator, there being lots of Vietnamese at the time needing a place to go that wasn’t underwater); Lupé, a descendant of the local African people; and Hotep, who was actually born on one of the generation ships, but was sent back down to Earth by her parents who didn’t want to deal with her “abnormal” behavior (it’s pretty clear she’s on the neuroatypical spectrum). The plot centers around the three of them being offered a very well-paying job, but one that requires going much deeper into the desert than anyone has gone for a very long time. The desert where the wealthy segments of society conducted all sorts of research, done in such remote locations because of concerns of industrial espionage. Those facilities have been abandoned for a long time, but there are rumors that “abandoned” doesn’t necessarily mean “dead.”
Not going to go into any detail of the plot, but I will say that it’s fairly short, tightly plotted (this is a book that takes place over a few days), and mostly fairly hard science fiction with a generous sprinkling of horror.
So why, you may ask, did this book piss me off so much? Because of the sheer injustice of it all. The people going up the elevator and leaving the Earth are the exact same ones who broke it in the first place. Mao and Lupé are just people trying to make do in a world they aren’t responsible for, literally risking their lives so that the people who wrecked everything can have comfortable air conditioning in the brief time they wait to go up the elevator. And they seem almost resigned to it. That’s not even right - they’re not “resigned” to it any more than I’m “resigned” to the sky being blue. It’s just the way it is. The message here isn’t subtle, and it left me furious at the world, guilty over my privileged place in it, and depressed at my powerlessness to change things.
It’s not such a difficult thing to tug a reader’s heartstrings. But stirring this kind of reaction without something as crude as shooting poor Old Yeller is a real indicator of a craftsman at work. Highly recommended if you're looking for a quick, intense read that'll stick with you for a while.
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