Mind’s Edge uses its post-apocalyptic setting and psychic abilities to explore survival, prejudice, identity, and the ways systems quietly decide whose lives are disposable.
The nuclear states are more than a backdrop, they’re a constant reminder that survival is unevenly distributed. People inside the contaminated zone live with scarcity, danger, and illness as daily realities. People outside live with distance, denial, and carefully curated news.
This imbalance asks a simple question: whose survival matters enough to protect?
The Radios are feared as monsters, but their abilities came from the same catastrophe that the outside world tried to forget. They are “othered” twice, once by the infection, and again by the narrative that paints them as unstable and dangerous.
The hostility between Radios and Worlders is not just old resentment; it’s actively maintained by people who benefit from keeping those groups divided.
Edge’s identity is fractured by design. He’s Radio enough to be distrusted in the clean sector and Worlder enough to be resented in the nuclear states. That in between space is where the book explores identity as something unstable, shaped by history, family, and geography, but never fully fixed.
The murders at the center of the plot peel back the layers of power behind the nuclear divide. Corporate heads can fund security, influence policy, and distance themselves from the radioactive fallout while still exploiting the region.
Guilt is outsourced. Responsibility is blurred. The people directly harmed by their decisions rarely get a say in how the story is told.
Edge’s connections to people in the nuclear states force him to choose between following orders and protecting those who trusted him long before he carried a badge. The book returns to one recurring theme: how far can loyalty bend before it breaks?
