The Fireman

The Fireman by Joe Hill.  768 pages.

When the plague begins to spread, it spreads quickly.  The doctors call it  Draco Incendia Trychophyton. However, everyone else just calls it Dragonscale. Spread by spore, it marks its hosts with beautiful, tattoo-like black and gold marks across their bodies . . . before causing them to burst into flames.  There is no antidote, and millions are infected.

Harper Grayson, a dedicated nurse and fan of Mary Poppins, treats hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burns to the ground and she discovers she's infected with Dragonscale. She also discovers she's pregnant, much to her husband Jakob's dismay.  Against his wishes, she is determined to live, at least long enough to deliver her child, who should be born healthy.  This is too much for Jakob, who leaves Harper to fend for herself.  However, she discovers she isn't alone.  A mysterious man that Harper met at the hospital, a man who wears a dirty yellow fire fighter's jacket and carries a hooked iron bar, seems to be keeping an eye on her.  Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, and seems to be able to control the fire within himself, using it as a way to protect the infected who are being hunted, and as a weapon.

I devoured this book.  Seriously, I sat on my porch and just read, gulping down page after page.  I found this story to be intensely readable; the story is compelling, the characters are interesting, and I wasn't always sure what was going to happen next.   Hill weaves together these elements, along with the plague that is constantly lurking in the background.  There is no cure for Dragonscale, but can it truly be mastered?   There's horror in this story, to be sure, but there's also a lot of bravery, and moments where characters find strength within themselves to stand up for what they feel is right.  I liked that Hill made this plague sound realistic, and how it spreads and the disastrous effects that it has. The pace is steady, but unrelenting, and you never quite feel like the main characters are completely safe.  Like real life, though, it's also not always completely awful; there are moments of wry humor.   For example, here's this bit of dialogue:

"Do you think Keith Richards is still alive?" he asked.
"Sure. Nothing can kill him. He'll outlast us all."

I did have a few problems while I was reading this book:
1) I actually did need to go to work, and couldn't just sit at home reading this book.
2) The book finished.   Yes, there's a nice little coda, tucked back into the credits, which helps . . . but the book still ends.   Which means I now have to wait for Hill's next book.