Book review: Theft of Fire

Brutal and Honest

Not that that this book needs another review. If you’re like me, Theft of Fire was all over your feed two summers ago, and then again this fall, with its cover art looking wistfully at you and its author being controversial on the internet.

At first, I didn’t buy this book because, frankly, the Strong Young Adult Woman of Color on the cover made me think it would be yet more dishonest Woke bluster. Even more frankly, Theft of Fire wasn’t available on Kindle Unlimited, and I didn’t want to part with any of my precious cash. Then Eriksen made me care about his characters, and got me well and truly hooked.

Marcus Warnoc is a thief, pirate, and murderer, with a hidden core of shame. He hates being poor, he’s disgusted with his family background, and he cannot forgive himself for the people he’s killed.

Miranda Foxgrove solves Marcus’s problems by rubbing his face in them. She buys his ship, treats him like a peasant, and uses his criminal past to blackmail him into a suicide mission. Her ends justify these means, though, at least in her eyes. Miranda has detected signals from the edge of the Solar System that point to a previously undiscovered alien artifact.

Or rather, Leela detected the signals. She’s a computer emulation of a teenage girl, created by Miranda and kept in a state of naive compliance. Yes, sweetie, you’re paralyzed in the hospital, plugged into a neural link. Just give me a hand with decryption until the doctors make you better and your parents come to pick you up.

I had no need to be wary of Leela on the cover art. Eriksen made her and put her in the story for good reasons. Otherwise, while there is a little “down with the corporations” sentiment from Marcus, it makes sense that he thinks that way.

Miranda, a literal grand-daughter of Elon Musk, has a more complex relationship with the business of power. I can read happily, knowing the author isn’t trying to pull one over on me. These are his characters speaking, not him.

There is a plot about snatching the McGuffin, yes, but really this book is about three bad people wrestling with each other, themselves, and a hostile universe as they become better.

As far as that universe, itself, goes, it is a bit derivative. Theft of Fire sits comfortably in the middle of the Cowboy Bebop/Firefly/Expanse Solar System, where Belters with rad augments pilot fusion rockets around cordons of heavily-armed managerial overlords, trying to snatch the alien device That Changes Everything.

Where Eriksen excels is the living detail of this world. The best pilots have to weight-train in order to develop the muscles to keep their blood pressure up during high acceleration. How does it feel on your first day in the gym when you’re a geeky Venusian and all the Belter body-builders are staring at you? I feel for you, man.

And then there’s the sex.

Marcus is muscular, dangerous, and good at what he does. Miranda is a ruthless, peerless expert in her field and was genetically engineered to be super-humanly sexy. These people want each other, they can’t stand each other, they must work together or die.

Not everyone likes this level of heat in a book. I admit that I do, but if Theft of Fire stopped there, it would be less controversial and less worth my time. Because it’s Theft of Fire’s most content-warning-est sequence that forms the core of this story and made me decide to write this review in the first place.

After spending the first third of the book fighting Miranda for control of his spaceship, Marcus is finally able to close on his adversary. Enraged, despairing, and in a panic, he grabs her by the throat. And she likes it.

Theft of Fire could never have been published by Penguin Random House. It offends people on both sides of the Culture War. It’s probably a terrible influence on the Youth. And yet, it’s true.

These are people with all their heights and depths, shame and pride and triumph. Eriksen’s honesty is vanishingly rare in contemporary art, which makes it all the more precious. I call upon you to reward it.

Theft of Fire is available from Amazon.