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Summary
Summary
Book Three in the critically acclaimed The Fire Sermon trilogy-- The Hunger Games meets Cormac McCarthy's The Road in this richly imagined post-apocalyptic series by award-winning poet Francesca Haig.
The apocalypse has come and gone, and now every person is born a twin: one a strong Alpha, one a mutated Omega.
The Omegas live in segregation, cast out by their families as soon as their mutation becomes clear. Forced to live apart, they are ruthlessly oppressed by their Alpha counterparts. The only thing that keeps the Alphas at bay is the fact that whenever one twin dies, so does the other.
In this thrilling conclusion to The Fire Sermon trilogy, Cass, Piper, and Zoe have discovered that Elsewhere exists, and it's more real and more complicated than any of them could have imagined. Now, they must race to prevent the Alphas from destroying what might be the only salvation for the Omegas.
The end to their lifelong discrimination is in sight, but before she can be free, Cass must overcome her loyalty to her Alpha twin, Zach, her most dangerous enemy. But if they're not careful, both will die in the struggle for power.
Author Notes
Francesca Haig grew up in Tasmania. She earned a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Hons) and PhD from the University of Melbourne. She also tutored in Film Studies and Creative Writing. She was a senior lecturer at the University of Chester. Her poetry has been published in literary journals and anthologies in both Australia and England. Her first collection of poetry is entitled Bodies of Water. In 2010 she was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship. The Fire Sermon is her first novel.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Haig's third Fire Sermon postapocalyptic novel (after The Map of Bones) conjures up a complex, broken world in which brutality and oppression are just barely balanced by fleeting moments of hope. As established in previous volumes, following a devastating nuclear war, all human births now result in twins: the "perfect" Alphas and the mutated Omegas. Each pair of twins is connected psychically, so that what befalls one also affects the other; they suffer each other's pain and die each other's deaths. Omega Cass experiences prophetic visions of another terrible explosion and must coax her allies into waging all-out war against the Alpha forces of the insidious general to prevent catastrophe. When her twin, Zach, a prominent Alpha leader with vital information, seeks refuge with Cass's people, his presence creates disarray and distrust. Even as Cass leads a force to free thousands of captive Omegas from the stasis tanks in which they've been placed for "safekeeping," she must uncover the traitor in her ranks and deal with the brother who's turned into a mortal enemy she can't afford to harm. Haig never fully takes advantage of the setting's conceit to examine the brutal impact of every act of violence being doubled. Still, as she wraps up the trilogy, she subverts expectations even as she draws to a logical, bittersweet conclusion. Agent: Juliet Mushens, Agency Group. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
As Haig continues her Fire Sermon series, following The Map of Bones (2016), Cass, Piper, Zoe, and Paloma make their way back to New Hobart, where they will fight the final battles of the struggle for freedom. Paloma is a representative of the Scattered Islands and a symbol of hope. Ever since the blast, everyone has a twin; one twin is a flawed omega, one a perfect alpha, and when one dies, the other dies also. Everyone, that is, except the people of the Scattered Islands. The alphas in power cling to their superiority, but the largely omega resistance of New Hobart will fight to the bitter end. When Cass' twin, Zach, appears, asking for sanctuary, events ramp up. A series of betrayals, bitter battles, and unspeakably and dearly won victories later, Haig ties up the key threads of the story of overthrowing oppression in a messy but satisfying knot. Cass' narrative voice, and her approach to the increasingly difficult decisions she must make, drives the story quite effectively.--Schroeder, Regina Copyright 2017 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In the postapocalyptic future, babies are born only as twins: a perfect Alpha and a deformed Omega. Twins have the capacity to feel each other's pain, even to the point of death.Treated as damaged or lesser beings, the Omegas are rounded up into refugee camps, or, worse, tanked in a dreamless state of suspended animation to protect their Alpha twins. Cass, an Omega seer, has fought her brother and the Alpha Council for years, destroying tanks and gathering intelligence for the resistance. In this final volume in Haig's "Fire Sermon" trilogy (The Fire Sermon; The Map of Bones), Cass finds that the mythical Elsewhere exists and that the people there have solved the twinning issue. The Council will bomb Elsewhere in order to preserve the status quo and quash the rebellion. Cass's powers as seer and the rebellion fighters are all that stand between a cure for her people or the destruction of another. Verdict Haig's prose is as eloquent and beautiful as ever as she brings her acclaimed series to a close. Her pacing is slow and steady, emphasizing relationships more than places or events. [See Prepub Alert, 6/25/17.]-Jennifer Funk, McKendree Univ. Lib., Lebanon, IL © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
