Near-future America, where the prison system got turned into a televised blood sport. Sign up for the program and you fight other prisoners to the death on live TV; survive three years and you walk free. Almost nobody makes it. Loretta Thurwar is the biggest star on the circuit and closing in on her release, and Hurricane Staxxx is her teammate and the woman she loves, which is a problem when the schedule eventually pairs them off. Adjei-Brenyah writes the fights like sportscasting and the crowd like people you know. Then he drops footnotes on the page — real numbers, real cases, actual American prisons — so you can’t sit there enjoying it as invention. That’s the trap, and he sets it deliberately.
Chain Gang All Stars