Tchaikovsky creates an all too believable world here. Global warming has taken hold, and the rich have ascended into luxurious space stations, leaving the poor behind on a world of deserts, scarce resources, skin cancer and water shortages. This is the background for the adventure that unfolds when Mao, Lupe and Hotep take double-triple pay to head out into the desert to find out what's causing the power shortages.

What Tchaikovsky does brilliantly is capture different intelligences and give a real insight into what they might be like and what they might mean. He's good on how societies work, as well. This gives this book a real sense of being grounded, so that even when things get weird you can see how they got there.

Thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this ARC. I absolutely loved it.

I recieved a free digital editon through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions shown are my own and given freely.

So when i saw thw cover this really piqued my interest, then the description had me hooked. Sadly the book didnt live up to the promise.

There was very little world buoldimg and yet far too much detail for what was going on. There was a lot that didnt make sense and i was bored throughout most of the book and almost dnfed the book...

Considering this book is less than 200 pages, it felt like a hell of a lot more. And not in a good way. It just felt like i read about 300 pages instead.

I wanted to really love this book but sadly i was very disappointed.

This was a good story. Teams of Firewalkers go out in environmentally sealed buggies to work on jobs that only they can do - and many times, don't come back. You have a scorched earth, psychopathic holographs and lots of big bugs. Reminds me of a horror movie at a Saturday matinee with heavy ecological overtones. I gave it 5 stars because it is so well written.

Review for publication elsewhere.
....................................................................
....................................................................
....................................................................

When you’re offered double-double danger pay to do a job with no other information, you know it’s not something you particularly want to do. But when you pause to consider this fact and the boss instantly ups the offer to double-triple … well. That’s a lot of money — and a whole lot of something to avoid — but if you live in a scorching, apocalyptic hellscape and your family depends on you for survival, literally, need trumps want. Every time.

Such is the thinking of Mao, one of the main characters in Firewalkers, an outstanding dystopian sci-fi thriller by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I was hooked from the very first page and tore through the book, reading in every spare moment and late into the night. This review is based on an advance copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley for that purpose. The book will be available on May 12, 2020.

Firewalkers is set in a climate-change devastated future, in a part of equatorial Africa where human survival relies on avoiding the daytime heat and sun. Mao and his friends Lupe and Hotep are Firewalkers, part of a select group of young men and women (Firewalkers don’t survive long enough to get old) who journey out into blasted wastes to repair the infrastructure keeping their boomtown settlement of Achouka scratching along.

Achouka exists in a land otherwise devoid of life because it is an anchor point, the terrestrial landing point for a cable to space. At the other end of that cable, a long elevator ride away, is a space ship where some of the planet’s most wealthy and powerful continue to live lives of comfort. Alongside the anchor point is a hotel where those lucky enough wait for their turn to ride the elevator to salvation. The great demand for power to keep these fortunate guests comfortably air conditioned is supplied by automated fields of solar panels connected to Achouka. When the power supply is disrupted just before a large group of guests is scheduled to arrive, Mao and his crew are sent Far South to locate and fix the problem.

Far South, where mysterious things are said to exist, and double-triple danger pay may not be enough.

I can’t say more without spoiling the fun for future readers. The pace is quick but not rushed, and the author does a great job of setting the scene without excess words. Mao and the other characters are well developed and interesting. There are some twists that took me by surprise, and some very thought-provoking ideas about inequality, the environment and family. While this doesn’t appear to be the opener of a series (and I’m not advocating for it to be), the ending is somewhat open-ended and I spent some time wondering what would happen next. There is a realistic uncertainty at the end of Firewalkers, and that made me enjoy it all the more.

So I think that's two novels Tchaikovsky has out in May, never mind the rest of the year. This is the fifth I've read from him – so approximately 2% of his output – and the closest to what was briefly called mundane SF; no far futures or distant worlds, no fiddling with the laws of physics as currently and commonly understood. Just a glimpse a few years into the future, which inevitably is not pretty. The rich are heading up the space elevators to orbital cruise liners, but this is a story of the poor bastards left at the bottom to keep operational the very same systems from which, as per bloody usual, they'll never see a benefit. Depending where they are, they have far too much water, or not nearly enough. Because of course around the equator, the best place to leave the planet, is also one of the first areas that's going to become uninhabitable, isn't it? And the story follows three brave, desperate 'firewalkers' out into the desertified badlands to investigate a problem with a solar farm, a journey with definite and deliberate overtones of a less humid but even deadlier Apocalypse Now. It's not a cheery read, in other words - although afterwards the news does seem comparatively less stressful, even if it's basically the prequel. I don't know that I altogether buy the final act, but until that it's a painfully likely glimpse into the crystal ball, which of course also serves to remind us of the degree to which we're already inhabiting a monstrous dystopia.

(Netgalley ARC)

On a scorched Earth, access to energy can mean the difference between life and death.

Firewalkers is the latest shorter novel by Tchaikovsky. A mystery set in an environmentally ravaged future, it follows a group of firewalkers as they are sent out to investigate some strange energy surges and interruptions. A bleak picture of the future, one in which the very few have left the many behind. I enjoyed this.

I don’t want to delve too deeply into the plot, as it’s not the longest of novels. (For Adrian, this can be classified as a novella…) We’re dropped right into the setting, and we quickly become oriented to this future. Temperatures have skyrocketed and world’s population is in a constant struggle for work, energy (mainly for air conditioning), food, and water. The wealthiest people alive are slowly disappearing up onto an orbital habitat, leaving the rest to scratch together an existence.

“Oil money, industry money, bottled water magnates, fossil fuel tycoons, and all the politicos who made sure they kept on fucking the world over. And then they get to live above it all and go someplace cool for the summer, like space. Because they’d rather throw their money at taking them and theirs to another planet than try to fix this one. And everyone left here? Well you can all fucking fry! Or you can take their dollars to fix their fucking AC before they grab it all and leave for good.”

That above quotation resonates so much with what we’re seeing today. Consider the number of billionaires who are spending vast sums on space travel, rather than fixing issues we have right here. There’s a quiet, fierce criticism of many contemporary policies in the book. Readers aren’t beaten around the head with them, but it’s also impossible to miss them (assuming you have eyes and ears and are vaguely aware of what’s happening in the world today).

An interesting novel that paints a grim picture of a possible future if global warming accelerates, and temperatures continue to rise dramatically. A diverse cast of interesting and distinct characters, a dollop of mystery and technological shenanigans. There’s some good action, tricksy AI, and a satisfying ending.

Recommended.

Not surprisingly, a strong work by a respected author. I've read most of his latest novels, and this was just as good. It's shorter than most of his other books, and while bleak, he always creates interesting characters in compelling plots. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

After devouring Tchaikovsky’s Dogs of War, I promised myself to read more of his books. A wise decision. Not only is he one of the most versatile and prolific fiction authors at the moment, but he also delivers every single time.

In Firewalkers, he looks at the world devastated by climate collapse, and its social and economic consequences. The ultra-rich escape the wastelands and enjoy wealthy lives in the space. The poor left behind try to survive on Earth. Firewalkers maintain infrastructure and repair solar panels in the deserts. They’re expendable, and many of them never return from their missions. The world after the climate collapse is hot. Like 140F/60C hot. Firewalkers’ job wreaks bodies and minds. They’re doing their best to survive and keep their humanity even though they have no hope for a better tomorrow.

Make no mistake - it’s not a hopeful book. It’s bleak, gritty and depressing. It’s also so damn unfair. Firewalkers die serving people who ruined the Earth but can afford to pack their families and enjoy luxuries elsewhere.

The story follows a team of three close friends, who can earn a lot of money by doing a dangerous job. They need to identify and repair the source of power supply disruptions that influence the work of the air conditioner units of the city’s hotel for the rich. The team enters the abandoned underground ruins of human civilization. Their discovery is shocking and deals with science and technology getting out of control. I can’t get into details lest there be spoilers.



Think of Firewalkers as of hard sci-fi with a soul. It focuses on science and technology but never forgets about characters and their interactions. Additionally, it paints a cynical vision of a stratified society in which caring for others rarely happens. I found it fascinating and disturbing in equal measures. The poor live in hovels, often sharing a single room between the whole family. Most of them die of skin cancer long before they reach their forties.

The three protagonists, Mao, Lupé, and Hotep are likable, although I found Hotep most interesting and Mao the least interesting of the three. And that’s a problem since we follow the story mostly through Mao‘s POV. The other thing that irked me was the tiring use of a slang mixing all the languages of the city. An interesting and realistic choice, but at times difficult to enjoy.

Despite its minor flaws, Firewalkers is a quality science-fiction gem. Tchaikovsky weaves an all-too-plausible tale of environmental collapse and its consequences. He has something intelligent to say even while keeping the action junkies satisfied.

A very good novel in a young adult science-fiction after post apocalyptic scenery.
I appreciated that the post apocalyptic aspect wasn't too much moralising, letting the place for the story to unfold and expand, as an inventive and rather creepy tale!
I also loved the three main characters, each one has a credible and nuance personality, without tiresome stereotype. The psychology was sane and believable.
A very good story, with characters in 3D a strong atmosphere - as in all the author's books I've read so far.
A superb read!

Firewalkers takes place in a dystopian world where the poor have been left on earth while the rich have escaped to space leaving the remnants to scrape out a living by serving the rich who are still trying to leave. I always enjoy Tchaikovsky’s books and the world building but here some things felt rushed in a way that his books do not usually. I think the narrator was a poor choice. The other two people on the trip were much more interesting and had more active roles while the MC seemed more like an add-on. Also, without any spoilers, the critical end decision seems glossed over and rushed since it had nothing to do with the MC, and the reader just gets a chapter afterwards. I enjoyed it for a quick read but think it would have been served much better with a different point of view. Thank you to NetGalley for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

Firewalkers was a book I was extremely excited for, as it is a sci-fi/speculative novella written by the award-winning Adrian Tchaikovsky, who I had heard really great things about, but haven’t made time to read yet.

The story is set on earth in a near/distant future where climate change has completely changed the landscape of the world. Population is much smaller and people have condensed into smaller communities, creating cities with extremely diverse cultures, languages, religions, and overall worldviews. In this world, the rich are able to buy their way off the planet and to a much easier life aboard the Grand Celeste, a giant space-cruiser city with all the luxuries the rich are accustomed to and none of the hardships of the nearly-destroyed earth. Back on earth, though, people are subjected to the extremely difficult living conditions of a world completely altered by climate change. Work is scarce, and water even more so. One of the only good jobs that exist is that of a firewalker.

Firewalkers are sent off into the desolate areas far from the cities to fix issues that arise with the barely-functioning power systems, among other things. They are skilled and, usually, young because it is a job that’s hard on the body and difficult to maintain for a long period of time. This story follows three such firewalkers (Mao, Lupé, and Hotep), all nineteen or so, that are sent on a job to figure out why the city’s hotel for the rich is having such difficulty getting the air conditioner units to work as fully as they have in the past. Over the course of the story, our firewalkers go on a road-trip of sorts to discover who (or what) is using up all of the power.

This story is so well-developed, and its themes of climate change and class are extremely timely. The characters are diverse and view the world in different ways, but still manage to be friends at the end of the day. Genre-wise, Firewalkers is, I think, best described as hard sci-fi. However, I think it’s a very approachable version of hard sci-fi, as the story sits in a space somewhere between post-apocalyptic, dystopian, and science fiction. There is very little romance, so don’t worry about that being an issue here. The story is mostly focused on its themes and its friendships, and both of these things are well-conceived and well-done.

I will say that this book was a little difficult for me to fully emerge myself into, and I had trouble fully connecting with some of the characters. I loved Hotep, and think she was brilliantly conceived and portrayed. However, I had trouble fully relating to Mao, and he was the main character for most of the story. I wish we had gotten some scenes from Hotep’s perspective, like we did for both Mao and Lupé, because I think it would have added a lot to the story as a whole. In addition, there was a lot of slang used throughout the dialogue of the book, and some of the slang was specific to this story and showed the mixing of of all the languages of this city. I thought this was interesting, but it took me out of the story several times, unfortunately, because I had to figure out exactly what the characters were trying to say.

All in all, I think this book will rate around 3.5 stars for me, rounded up to 4 stars, because of how much I enjoyed the story thematically. I recommend this to people who are fans of this genre, enjoy stories with progressive themes regarding class or climate, or are a particular fan of this author.

I received an arc of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, but it hasn’t affected my review of the book whatsoever.

This book had two principal effects on me. One was to make me really, really want to read <i>Shadows of the Apt</i>. 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 <i>Firewalkers</i> 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 <i>Firewalkers</i> 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 <i>resigned</i> 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.

This is my second read by the author. Previously I’ve tried another of the relatively slender Solaris published books of his, Walking to Aldebaran, and was thoroughly underwhelmed. I figured I’ll give the author another try, after all he seems to be so popular and well liked by so many readers. But having just revisited that review of mine, I must say this just isn’t for me. The complaints in fact are exactly the same. The books are technically good, imaginative, conceptually inviting…but the execution remains oddly flat. It’s downright peculiar, but despite all the good on paper, exciting on paper components, the entire thing fails to excite. So much so that it might be a strictly personal thing, but then again this is precisely what reviews are. The young age of characters almost turned me off initially, but this is definitely not YA, though I suppose it can be read as such. The characters may be young, but the devastating and dangerous world they inhabit has aged them into early maturity. The entire thing is a sort of metaphor for the wealth disparity with the one percenters residing above it all in all the comforts money can buy and the rest are scrambling in the scorched earth below trying to survive. The Firewalkers are the ones bold enough to go out into the most uninhabitable of lands to take care of the solar panels for the oligarchs. It’s a job too dangerous and too difficult to do for long, so only the young take it on. This is a story of one such team. The rest, the details have already faded from my memory in a week, which usually is its own statement, but that’s the gist of it. And the thing is there has been so many metaphors and set ups just like that one in recent literature and movies. I’ve just watched Alita and it looks just like the world described. So yeah, sure, it’s timely and all that, but not exactly original, is it. So yeah, very bland read. Something about the author’s writing just doesn’t work for me, doesn’t engage me at all. Quick, though. Thanks Netgalley.

Different from previous books by this author but no less in quality or ideas, I will be honest and state I did not enjoy this as much as previous works but I certainly appreciated it for being a thoroughly good read

There can be little doubt that Adrian Tchaikovsky is among the most talented, creative and also versatile SFF authors of today.

In Firewalkers he crafts an utterly bleak world, devastated by runaway global warming that has rendered huge regions of the Earth uninhabitable desert, complete dead zones. The rich have packed up and left for space via space elevators stationed along the equator, taking much of the Earth's most valuable resources with them. Firewalkers are the brash young troubleshooters that venture out into the wasteland to troubleshoot critical infrastructure problems. Many never return.

The story follows a team of three close friends, Firewalkers stationed at the base of a space elevator located in west Africa. They are sent out to find and repair the source of increasingly more severe power supply disruptions from the vast fields of solar arrays located within the nearby dead zone. The suspense and mystery build as the team sets out among the barren landscape and the aging ruins of human civilization abandoned long ago. In the midst of the dead zone they come to the vast underground ruins of the facility setup by the rich for the construction of their spaceship and make a shocking discovery, something forgotten from the past that has a new agenda, with chilling implications for the future.

The themes here are not dissimilar to those Tchaikovsky took on in his marvelous Children of Time and Children of Ruin books. Science and technology run amok, developing and evolving in completely unforeseen ways, with surprising and devastating consequence.

Firewalkers by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first review on GR! :)

I was pretty thrilled to get the copy on Netgalley. So much so that I had to read it the same day. Am I nuts? Or am I just a Firewalker at heart?

Gritty, depressing, and like a Hobbsian nightmare, these people live in a hothouse city on life support, barely kept alive because it is the base and the tether to the orbiting space station. Its people barely scrape by while the Roach Motel that takes in all the dignitaries and the rich are kept in Air Conditioned luxury.

Sounds rather familiar. Doesn't it? Well, Firewalkers are the ragged teams of poverty-ridden go-getters that fix the things that not even the robots can fix. They are the ones that get things working, but they're expendable and most of these young kids never come back from the near-apocalyptic desert surrounding the town.

The context is emotionally painful and takes up a large portion of the character building, but it's when the novella takes off into the wild that I was most thrilled.

I loved the tight team. I LOVED all the discoveries. No spoilers, but damn, Tchaikovsky has a huge fascination with creepy crawlies and programmed personalities, no?

The adventure is large, the stakes larger, and the end was super satisfying. I'm super glad I got my greedy hands on it.

'Nuff said.

A thrilling epic scifi novella, Firewalkers follows the children responsible for maintaining the solar panels on a dystopian future world. With almost poetic pacing and sympathetic characters, this original and refreshing novel is a must-read for fans of science fiction who hunger for something slightly out of the norm.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest opinion.