The Fire-us Trilogy

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The Fire-us Trilogy by Jennifer Armstrong and Nancy Butcher is a young-adult post-apocalyptic series consisting of three books: The Kindling, The Keepers of the Flame, and The Kiln.

In the year 2007, all the adults began to die, leaving their defenseless children to fend for themselves. Most fell to wild animals or hunger, but a small group of lucky (or not-so-lucky) children managed to find each other, and still survives in Florida. Their simple, but relatively happy, existence is interrupted by the appearance of a strange young boy who calls himself Anchorman and leads them away from their home in the first time since the Fire-Us to find a man known as "President".

Tropes used in The Fire-us Trilogy include:

• Aborted Arc: Mommy finding the car and the book never gets a real resolution.
• Apocalypse How: Class 1.
• Camp Unsafe Isn't Safe Anymore: It takes the kids a long time to decide to leave the mall. Possibly justified, as they really, really wanted it to be safe, and were intentionally ignoring everything that told them it wouldn't be to hang onto their new illusion of security for as long as possible.
• Companion Cube: Angerman's mannequin
• Dysfunction Junction: Holy St. Francis! Just among the Four-Temperament Ensemble we've got a schizophrenic, an Hikikomori, and a girl who feels her life has no meaning without a special book.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: President seems to genuinely grieve the loss of his wife and sons.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble:
  • Sanguine: Angerman.
  • Choleric: Hunter.
  • Melancholic: Teacher.
  • Phlegmatic: Mommy.
    • Later on, you can make the case that Mommy is the Supine, with Cory being Phlegmatic II.
• G-Rated Mental Illness: Averted. It may be a young-adult series, but Angerman's fits are extremely disturbing.
• Great Big Book of Everything: The Book.
• Hearing Voices: Angerman is absolutely convinced Bad Guy talks to him, among other things.
• Hikikomori: Mommy.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: The President to Angerman; Cory's sister to Puppy and Kitty.
• Infant Immortality: Subverted. It's explicitly stated that most of the children starved to death or got eaten by wild animals.
• No Periods, Period: Averted.
• Only Fatal to Adults: The bomb employed by the president.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Most of the character fall under this trope, though some--such as Teacher, Mommy and Hunter--fall under Everybody Calls Him Barkeep.
  • Hunter is Zig-Zagged. He believes his name in the Before Time was also Hunter. Angerman is not sure.
• Promotion to Parent: All of the older children.
• Pun-Based Titles: All three books have titles having to do with fires, reflecting how the children misremember "virus" as "fire-us".
• Scenery Gorn: The covers.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Cory in the last book.
• Ship Sinking: Mommy and Hunter get set up romantic interests, but their relationship takes a beating after The Talk. There's some implication they may be on the mend by the end, though.
• Social Services Does Not Exist: Justified. Not much does, anymore.
• Team Mom: Mommy. Obviously.
• Teenage Wasteland: Type 2.
• There Are No Adults: Subverted. There are, but the vast majority of them are dead.
• There Are No Therapists: For good reason.
• The Talk: The kids get this in the second book. The audience is spared.