Coldwire Books in Order

The Coldwire series, also known as the StrangeLoom trilogy, is Chloe Gong's jump into dystopian science fiction. It is set in 2058, after pandemics, pollution, and environmental collapse have made much of the physical world difficult to live in. For people who can pay, virtual reality offers an escape, a polished digital version of life called upcountry.

That system is powered by StrangeLoom, software controlled by the corporation NileCorp. The company promises safety, order, and a chance to forget the damaged world below. But access is unequal, surveillance is everywhere, and the people left in downcountry pay the price for a comfort that others can buy by subscription.

Nothing about this escape is neutral.

Coldwire follows two Medan orphans through alternating points of view. Eirale Ward is a NileCorp soldier who is framed after a violent incident. Lia is a cadet at the Nile Military Academy, eager to prove herself inside the same system Eirale has begun to distrust. As both girls uncover clues about StrangeLoom and the conflict between Medaluo and Atahua, their separate paths start exposing the machinery behind the world they know.

The series uses virtual reality as more than a gadget. Upcountry lets people choose what they see, while downcountry holds the consequences they would rather avoid. Questions of nationality, class, corporate control, identity, and resistance sit alongside the action. Characters have to decide whether protecting the life they have is worth ignoring how it was built.

In Deadlock, Lia is working as a double agent inside NileCorp, while Nik Grant faces increasing danger in Atahua. The struggle becomes less about uncovering one secret and more about stopping a company from gaining total control over reality itself.

Expect a fast-moving story with conspiracies, shifting alliances, military training, digital worlds, and characters who cannot always trust what they are told. Start with Coldwire, since it introduces the two nations, the virtual system, and the personal histories driving the larger conflict.