Firebreak

Firebreak is a science fiction novel by the American writer Nicole Kornher-Stace, published in 2021.

The America of the book is run by a corporation that makes its money from war, and the children left over from that war live in the gaps between its buildings. Mallory earns what she can by streaming her play of a popular virtual reality combat game, where the best part is not winning but catching a glimpse of the corporation's celebrity supersoldiers. Stellaxis owns those soldiers, and the game exists to sell them as heroes; when Mal meets one of them in the game and begins to understand what they actually are, she has to decide what to do with the knowledge. The novel is about the machinery of celebrity and of war, and about a woman who is good at one thing in a world that has arranged itself so that being good at it does not help her.

It is a standalone novel, and its interest in authenticity and manufactured fame is one of the reasons it has been read alongside the author's other work.