An explosive debut novel  Is there a life without the internet?

A forest, two girls, lots of explosions: in Fiona Sironic's debut novel, Maja and Merle struggle to reclaim their digital past. When Era meets the two of them, their lives change. The novel tells of first love, digitalisation and everyday life in the near future, which has become hotter and more uncertain.

Am Samstag gehen die Mädchen in den Wald und jagen Sachen in die Luft (On Saturday, the girls go into the forest and blow things up) – the title of Fiona Sironic's debut novel is strikingly long and certainly arouses curiosity.

The girls? They are Maja and Merle, daughters of the famous “momfluencers” Alice and Emily. The things they blow up? Old hard drives and SD cards on which their mothers have stored their content from the last two decades, including Maja and Merle's first steps, their birthdays and many other big and small milestones, streamed on various platforms to an audience of millions.

An encounter that changes everything

Now, with every explosion, big or small, that they livestream, Maja and Merle, M&M, are regaining control of their digital past. Era, the 15-year-old first-person narrator, meets the two by chance in the forest near her tiny house, where she lives with her mother. An encounter that changes everything for her.

From now on, Era is always there when something explodes. A tender first love develops between her and Maja, and at first Era understands exactly why Maja and Merle feel the need to destroy this mass of data that has been accumulated about them since birth without their consent. But secretly she also knows that the explosions are just a drop in the ocean. Because one thing has always been true: the internet never forgets.

While Maja becomes increasingly extreme in her views and activism, Era has found her own, more peaceful way of gaining control over what should be remembered: she keeps lists of extinct animals and plants in notebooks, adding new species every day. For her 16th birthday, she receives a fireproof safe in which to store her notebooks. Because with the high temperatures outside, a fire could break out at any moment.

Food only in powder form

The novel is set in Germany in the near future. Only about 15 to 20 years separate us from Sironik's fictional world. Climate change now affects every area of life: instead of fresh food, most food is only available in powder form; schools are closed for three months in the summer because no child can learn in 37 degrees of shade; and car parks have long since been exposed as “a strange idea of space utilisation”. It is a world that is in the process of destroying itself.

It would be natural to classify the novel with its dystopian descriptions as “climate fiction,” but unlike many novels in this genre, the focus is on the characters' everyday lives rather than on descriptions of a failing system. The facts mentioned above are only mentioned in passing because they have become part of Era's everyday life.

What might a future without the internet look like?

Furthermore, the topic of digitalisation is at least as important as climate change. The two topics merge with each other, as is already the case in current debates – for example, when it comes to the fatal climate impact of generative AI. Reading the book therefore raises entirely new topics and questions. More than the “what,” it's about the “how”: What is life like in a world that is getting hotter and more unpredictable? What is it like to be a teenager in this world? What does the future of the internet look like? And what might a future without the internet look like?

With her novel, Sironic gives us a possible answer to these questions, accompanied by a glimmer of hope despite the bleak prognosis: in an existential emergency, Era and her mother experience solidarity from the community of her aunt, who lives in a greenhouse project on the outskirts of the city. A communal project where everyone can contribute their individual skills and knowledge, and where there are even fresh vegetables from their own garden. “We'll manage,” one of the housemates says to Era. And Era believes her:

February 2026