Watch the World Burn in Joe Hill’s The Fireman

A mysterious plague is sweeping the planet, making a wasteland of cities and entire states. They’re calling it Draco Incendia Trychophyton, but Dragonscale is catchier. The infected are marked by strangely beautiful black and gold designs, which would be well and good if the end stage of the disease didn’t typically involve sudden spontaneous combustion. No one knows how where the plague came from, nor is there any cure—nor much hope of one. Society is struggling to cope with the infected, but fear is rampant, and understandably so: caregivers face not only the chance of contamination, but the very real possibility of burning to death alongside their patients.
The worse things get, the more draconian the methods of containment: roving bands of armed, post-apocalyptic Minutemen (calling themselves Cremation Squads) have taken to the streets to wipe out disease carriers, partly from a sense of civic duty, but also for some beer-guzzling, rules-out-the-window kicks.  Harper Grayson is our window into this ugly world: she’s compassionate to a fault, and finds herself on the front lines when she puts her nursing background to use at one of the last hospitals equipped to care for the sick. Until it isn’t. Corralling a bunch of highly flammable people in one building turns out to have been a valiant, but ultimately misguided, notion.

Harper finds herself infected just as she discovers that she’s also pregnant. Her husband isn’t thrilled about either prospect, but she’s determined to live long enough to give birth to a (hopefully) healthy child. At this point, the story takes on shades of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead: Harper flees her suicidal husband and is fortunate enough to join up with a group of survivors who may have found a way to manage the infection, but she is soon reminded that there are worse things than infection. Even in the face of a disease that devastates both people and property, the real hell is still other people.
Hill’s previous works (NOS4A2, Horns, and Heart-Shaped Box), have been occasionally sprawling but always deeply character-focused. The Fireman is something of a departure: it’s a much bigger story, in many respects, with shades of Stephen King’s The Stand in its epic mix of end-times horror and science fiction. Yet it’s very much of a piece with his other works: every element, no matter how fantastical, is in service of exploring Harper’s character; she’s as well developed a protagonist as could be hoped for in a story about people with semi-magical flame powers. Don’t let the masculine title fool you—the eponymous Fireman is a significant character, but this is Harper’s story.
Harper is hopelessly naive, obsessed with Disney tunes and constantly seeing the best in others, even as her world crumbles. Very little goes right for this woman, for 700 unrelenting pages. Her compassion and dedication are tested again and again, but she never quite gives up, so we never do either. That’s not the point Hill is looking to make. As dark as his stories get, he’s just not that cynical. Imagine The Walking Dead from the point of view of the zombies (Hill’s metaphor, not mine) and you’ll understand where his sympathies lie: the people that come off the worst are the ones whose cynical realism gets the better of them. Harper serves as a (sometimes literal) beacon of light in a world where high-minded principles can seem hopelessly passé. Hill’s not afraid to wade into politics, and does so with a wicked sense of humor, saving the darkest fates for some of our loudest pundits.

The parallels to modern American life are by no means accidental. In our world, we debate about how to deal with modern global terrorism; mindless optimism never solves anything, but it’s hard not to be troubled by the idea that some battles may not be worth winning. Harper finds herself trapped between the cult-like kumbayas of the community in which she takes shelter and the despots on the Cremation Crews, and it’s surprisingly hard, at times, to pick the worst of the lot.
Hill suggests our humanity, compassion, and individuality are all worth fighting for. Our troubles are very real, but fear and hatred are the real enemy. A 24-hour news cycle and social media overload have left us believing the worst about each other, while Harper points the way to something a little more complex: our problems are chronic, just like the Dragonscale that’s sweeping the planet in The Fireman. Inescapable, but manageable, with the application of a little basic humanity. There’s an fairytale aspect to this work of survival horror, which serves up big ideas without sacrificing suspense or spectacle. It’s an epic story from an author who just keeps getting better.
The Fireman is available May 17.