Reviews

Fyrewall by Stefani Cox

Only show reviews with written explanations

Some interesting ideas, but I kept being thrown out of the story by the incongruity of the setup. Okay, so, about 120 years before this story begins, someone came up with an idea for a wall of water to protect Los Angeles from fires. Fine, I can buy that. Now, though, no one knows how it works, and the last remaining descendant of the inventor is expected to be able to do all maintenance, etc, by herself. Um, no. Emphatically, no.

We're talking about a wall, a spherical structure, big enough to enclose the entire city of Los Angeles. Hundreds, probably thousands, of people had to have worked to build this thing. There would have been plans for those people to follow. At the very least, we'd need an explanation explaining why those plans no longer exist, and how the last surviving builders had all come down with dementia or something and couldn't help. That's bad enough, but then there's a throwaway line about how LA still shares the tech as a bargaining chip with other cities. HUH?!??!!?? How in the heck does that work if, as is asserted, no one actually understands how the wall works any more?!??!??

So, yeah. The entire premise of the story does not work as sci-fi. However, it might work in a fantasy setting with magic (deleting the tech-sharing bit, as THAT still wouldn't make any sense), so once I started interpreting everything as magic instead of technology, I managed to overcome my antipathy and make it through. Decent characterization, interesting twist ending, once you stop pretending the story is sci-fi.

Note: I'm not saying that sci-fi and fantasy can never mix, just that this particular mix does not make any sense as written.