Faraday's Orphans by N. Lee Wood So far, it's excellent. Very, very well written. She won a Notable Book Award from New York Times for her first novel, Looking for the Mahdi. Faraday's Orphans is set in post-apocalyptic America. Our hero is an alcoholic helicopter pilot in a failing marriage and ruining his career because he won't toe the political line. The setting is the domed city of Pittsburgh and Wood goes into detail about the current society after the magnetic poles shifted, releasing the ozone layer and exposing earth to radiation. Like I said, the writing is really really good. Our hero eventually gets an exploratation assignment and heads out into "Outside" to explore the ruins of Philadelphia, a city that was too large to dome. There, he meets with disaster and finds himself stranded without a way home. He meets Sadonya who "cooks" for two rival "unions" (gangs) in the skeletal city. Excellent book.