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Firebreak
Flight & Anchor: A Firebreak Story
From the world of the breakout novel Firebreak, an exciting new adventure of corporate corruption, hazardous flight, and divided loyalties. After a daring escape from a prison lab, two young, modified soldiers arrive in a freezing-cold city where they have no resources. With time running out, a sinister handler pitting the operatives against each other will be the biggest threat to their mutual survival.
“Kornher-Stace masterfully weaves a deviously creative romp that is somehow both nail-bitingly suspenseful and tenderly cozy, as if the authors of How to Win the Time War had decided to set The Boxcar Children in Snow Crash’s tongue-in-cheek hyper-capitalist dystopia.”
—Maria Dong, author of Liar, Dreamer, Thief
Stellaxis operatives 06 and 22 have escaped. Years ago, they survived a corporate civil war; Stellaxis kidnapped and modified them into celebrity supersoldiers. But 06 and 22 have finally broken free from their barracks. They flee into a strange city they barely remember, trying to remain anonymous while their faces appear on billboards.
It will be an expensive disaster for the director of the supersoldier program if word gets out about the escaped operatives. But she has paired them for a 06 to aggressively engage, 22 to keep her in check. One flight, one a perfect team if they would just return to their rightful place with her. If not, all operatives' days are numbered.
In Nicole Kornher-Stace’s newest addition to her popular Firebreak world, Flight & Anchor is a riveting dystopic adventure of corporate corruption, hazardous flight, and divided loyalties.
“Kornher-Stace masterfully weaves a deviously creative romp that is somehow both nail-bitingly suspenseful and tenderly cozy, as if the authors of How to Win the Time War had decided to set The Boxcar Children in Snow Crash’s tongue-in-cheek hyper-capitalist dystopia.”
—Maria Dong, author of Liar, Dreamer, Thief
Stellaxis operatives 06 and 22 have escaped. Years ago, they survived a corporate civil war; Stellaxis kidnapped and modified them into celebrity supersoldiers. But 06 and 22 have finally broken free from their barracks. They flee into a strange city they barely remember, trying to remain anonymous while their faces appear on billboards.
It will be an expensive disaster for the director of the supersoldier program if word gets out about the escaped operatives. But she has paired them for a 06 to aggressively engage, 22 to keep her in check. One flight, one a perfect team if they would just return to their rightful place with her. If not, all operatives' days are numbered.
In Nicole Kornher-Stace’s newest addition to her popular Firebreak world, Flight & Anchor is a riveting dystopic adventure of corporate corruption, hazardous flight, and divided loyalties.
194 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 13, 2023
6 people are currently reading
2215 people want to read
About the author
Nicole Kornher-Stace
24 books433 followersNicole Kornher-Stace lives in New Paltz, NY, with her family. Her two most recent books are the adult SF cyberpunk dystopian thriller FIREBREAK (Simon & Schuster/Gallery/Saga, 2021) and her middle-grade debut JILLIAN VS. PARASITE PLANET (Tachyon, 2021). Her other books include the Andre Norton Award finalist ARCHIVIST WASP (Small Beer Press/Big Mouth House, 2015) and its sequel LATCHKEY (Mythic Delirium, 2018), which are about a far-future postapocalyptic ghosthunter, the ghost of a near-future supersoldier, and their adventures in the underworld.
You can find her on Twitter @wirewalking, where she is probably semicoherently yelling about board games, video games, hiking, aromantic representation, good books she's read recently, or her cat.
For tons of book extras, deleted scenes, and subscriber exclusives, check out her Patreon, which is single-tier pay-what-you-want for all access to everything.
You can find her on Twitter @wirewalking, where she is probably semicoherently yelling about board games, video games, hiking, aromantic representation, good books she's read recently, or her cat.
For tons of book extras, deleted scenes, and subscriber exclusives, check out her Patreon, which is single-tier pay-what-you-want for all access to everything.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
May 19, 2023
Back in the day, I was a fan of the James Cameron's sci-fi tv series Dark Angel, to the point where I ended up buying it and rewatching. Flight & Anchor felt like Dark Angel fan fiction, right down to the bar codes, anonymous Director, and police drones. Understand, I'm not complaining, because I loved Dark Angel. I just couldn't stop thinking about it, so I'm not sure if my reaction is bleed-over. The writing is above average, however, so I think it isn't just emotional resonance.
The story hinges on two super-soldier, genetically modified twelve-year-olds who have made an escape from their corporate compound. They are tracked, but for reasons, they are allowed to continue this unauthorized leave. As such, much of the plotting surrounds the adolescents exploring their space, re-familiarizing themselves with the outside world and stretching some mental limits. There was only one plot element that was a surprise to me. On the whole, the work felt like a 0.5 series story; a set piece and character card for fans of another book than an actual independent novella.
Kornher-Stace elaborates on this in the afterword, saying that it's a side story to two of the favorite characters in Firebreak. She writes that she likes to include elements from her other stories as "Easter eggs," although considers all of them able to stand alone. While technically, that may be true, I think in this case it's something a little more, as one of the 'eggs' plays a major role in moving the plot forward. It's eminently distracting when Kornher-Stace inserts lines like "The thought that will return to the Director unbidden, eight years down the line, standing in an elevator with minutes to live" and know that it won't be part of this story.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the writing a great deal, with the exception of when it devolved into list-making of found objects. Although I understand that sharing that information can fill out the world, it was a very mundane way to present the material. The exposition with the barista was a lovely introduction to the setting, although perhaps lasting until 15% was a bit excessive, because I fully expected them to play a role later in the story. An an aside, it was a distracting choice to use the word 'barista' with the gender pronoun 'them.' Just saying.
"There's another pause, like they're conferring. It's less weird under the lights, at least, looks less like telepathy and more like they're chatting over their implants like anyone else."
All in all, as an introductory piece to the world, it made me immediately want to go pick up Firebreak. Imagine, then, my disappointment when the sample was narrated by someone who sounded like an escapee from Ready Player One. Whoops. Won't be purchasing that one. I wonder if Korner-Stace is a literary chameleon? Love the subject choice, but I'll be checking out her works carefully before purchasing.
many thanks to Netgalley and Tachyon for an advance reader copy
The story hinges on two super-soldier, genetically modified twelve-year-olds who have made an escape from their corporate compound. They are tracked, but for reasons, they are allowed to continue this unauthorized leave. As such, much of the plotting surrounds the adolescents exploring their space, re-familiarizing themselves with the outside world and stretching some mental limits. There was only one plot element that was a surprise to me. On the whole, the work felt like a 0.5 series story; a set piece and character card for fans of another book than an actual independent novella.
Kornher-Stace elaborates on this in the afterword, saying that it's a side story to two of the favorite characters in Firebreak. She writes that she likes to include elements from her other stories as "Easter eggs," although considers all of them able to stand alone. While technically, that may be true, I think in this case it's something a little more, as one of the 'eggs' plays a major role in moving the plot forward. It's eminently distracting when Kornher-Stace inserts lines like "The thought that will return to the Director unbidden, eight years down the line, standing in an elevator with minutes to live" and know that it won't be part of this story.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the writing a great deal, with the exception of when it devolved into list-making of found objects. Although I understand that sharing that information can fill out the world, it was a very mundane way to present the material. The exposition with the barista was a lovely introduction to the setting, although perhaps lasting until 15% was a bit excessive, because I fully expected them to play a role later in the story. An an aside, it was a distracting choice to use the word 'barista' with the gender pronoun 'them.' Just saying.
"There's another pause, like they're conferring. It's less weird under the lights, at least, looks less like telepathy and more like they're chatting over their implants like anyone else."
All in all, as an introductory piece to the world, it made me immediately want to go pick up Firebreak. Imagine, then, my disappointment when the sample was narrated by someone who sounded like an escapee from Ready Player One. Whoops. Won't be purchasing that one. I wonder if Korner-Stace is a literary chameleon? Love the subject choice, but I'll be checking out her works carefully before purchasing.
many thanks to Netgalley and Tachyon for an advance reader copy
June 23, 2023
3.5 Stars
I picked up this novella without reading the original Firebreak novel. Marketers tend to always promise that companion books can be read as standalone but in this case it seemed true. I cannot comment on how this story ties into the main novel but I actually enjoyed it more with an air of myself.
The setup of this story reminded me of Elle's storyline from Stranger Thing. The story was very character focused and will be a good entry point for readers newer to science fiction.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
I picked up this novella without reading the original Firebreak novel. Marketers tend to always promise that companion books can be read as standalone but in this case it seemed true. I cannot comment on how this story ties into the main novel but I actually enjoyed it more with an air of myself.
The setup of this story reminded me of Elle's storyline from Stranger Thing. The story was very character focused and will be a good entry point for readers newer to science fiction.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
June 13, 2023
Two young children walk into a coffee shop, after being invited inside by a concerned barista. The barista, anxious about the children’s safety and feeling like something isn’t quite right, makes a phone call to their friend, wondering if these children might be connected to missing children their friend has been talking about for awhile. But when they come back into the front of the shop, the children are no where to be seen.
Flight and Anchor is a mashup of Stranger Things and the Boxcar Children in the best possible way. Even within such a short novella, I thought the world-building was very intriguing, always making me want to learn more. There’s some interesting technology that I haven’t seen before, and has an AI character that I adored!
We slowly learn more about the children- only known by their operative numbers 06 and 22. I believe they make appearances in Kornher-Stace’s previous novel, Firebreak, where they are older. The children have lost most of their memories, but we catch brief glimpses into their lives before being taken by Stellaxis, a mega corporation in the midst of a corporate civil war.
The characterization was surprisingly strong for such a short novella. It’s a survival story, and we see how despite their super-human abilities, despite the corporation seeking to turn them into weapons, the children are still vulnerable and insecure and naive. I was constantly rooting for them and needed to know if they would make it on their own or be caught and brought back.
I’ve never read Firebreak, the world where this novella takes place, but it’s not necessary to understand what is going on. If anything, it makes me even more excited to read more books set in this world!
I’d recommend Flight and Anchor if you like Stranger Things, dystopian world-building, human modification. An enjoyable read!
*Thank you to Tachyon Publications for the gifted arc copy. All opinions are my own.
Flight and Anchor is a mashup of Stranger Things and the Boxcar Children in the best possible way. Even within such a short novella, I thought the world-building was very intriguing, always making me want to learn more. There’s some interesting technology that I haven’t seen before, and has an AI character that I adored!
We slowly learn more about the children- only known by their operative numbers 06 and 22. I believe they make appearances in Kornher-Stace’s previous novel, Firebreak, where they are older. The children have lost most of their memories, but we catch brief glimpses into their lives before being taken by Stellaxis, a mega corporation in the midst of a corporate civil war.
The characterization was surprisingly strong for such a short novella. It’s a survival story, and we see how despite their super-human abilities, despite the corporation seeking to turn them into weapons, the children are still vulnerable and insecure and naive. I was constantly rooting for them and needed to know if they would make it on their own or be caught and brought back.
I’ve never read Firebreak, the world where this novella takes place, but it’s not necessary to understand what is going on. If anything, it makes me even more excited to read more books set in this world!
I’d recommend Flight and Anchor if you like Stranger Things, dystopian world-building, human modification. An enjoyable read!
*Thank you to Tachyon Publications for the gifted arc copy. All opinions are my own.
April 28, 2023
Flight & Anchor is all at once cozy, exhilarating, and full of care. 06 and 22 have an intoxicating energy that makes you crave more of their story and Flight & Anchor does not disappoint. Kornher-Stace finds a perfect balance between human childhood and otherworldliness by making us fall for the myth and propaganda surrounding 06 and 22 while also making them deeply human, if only deep down. A burning ember of humanity in the midst of overwhelming propaganda. An opening to fan the flame.
If you've read FIREBREAK (you should! read my review if you need convincing) you will love this prequel!
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If you've read FIREBREAK (you should! read my review if you need convincing) you will love this prequel!
Bookish Brews | Ko-Fi | Twitter | Pinterest | Tumblr | Facebook
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February 13, 2023Not a review!
I wrote this one for the Firebreak fans who emailed or DMed me to say things like "I loved this story but I really wish there'd been more 06 and 22!" Believe me, so did I! Unfortunately, while their story is much bigger than we get to see in Firebreak, the first-person narration of a character whose life only glanced against theirs very briefly precluded me from giving them the pagecount I would've preferred. In short, their story just doesn't really fit much into Mal's--certainly nowhere near as much as she (or I) would prefer.
Meanwhile, for the same readers, I have another bit of 06 & 22 tie-in here: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/artic...
Flight & Anchor was also written just for fun, for myself personally, as a homage to The Boxcar Children, which was a formative book for me when I was first learning to read. As such, the story structure of F&A mirrors it in some places, sometimes in so doing diverging from a more standard modern narrative structure. This was entirely deliberate, and I hope it pokes a few of you in the nostalgia as much as it did me to write it. :)
As it is ultimately a Firebreak tie-in, of course you'll be missing out on a whole lot if you haven't read that. Lucky for you, it is widely available in libraries, and if your favorite library hasn't got it in stock, friendly reminder that one of the best ways you can support this or any book at a cost of $0.00 to yourself is to put in a library request for it!
Additionally, since most of my books are tied together in the same world, you would also benefit from reading Archivist Wasp, Latchkey, and Jillian vs. Parasite Planet. Yes, this is a pile of adult, YA, and MG books. No, they don't seem at first glance to remotely belong together. Trust me. :)
I hope you have as much fun reading this one as I had writing it!
I wrote this one for the Firebreak fans who emailed or DMed me to say things like "I loved this story but I really wish there'd been more 06 and 22!" Believe me, so did I! Unfortunately, while their story is much bigger than we get to see in Firebreak, the first-person narration of a character whose life only glanced against theirs very briefly precluded me from giving them the pagecount I would've preferred. In short, their story just doesn't really fit much into Mal's--certainly nowhere near as much as she (or I) would prefer.
Meanwhile, for the same readers, I have another bit of 06 & 22 tie-in here: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/artic...
Flight & Anchor was also written just for fun, for myself personally, as a homage to The Boxcar Children, which was a formative book for me when I was first learning to read. As such, the story structure of F&A mirrors it in some places, sometimes in so doing diverging from a more standard modern narrative structure. This was entirely deliberate, and I hope it pokes a few of you in the nostalgia as much as it did me to write it. :)
As it is ultimately a Firebreak tie-in, of course you'll be missing out on a whole lot if you haven't read that. Lucky for you, it is widely available in libraries, and if your favorite library hasn't got it in stock, friendly reminder that one of the best ways you can support this or any book at a cost of $0.00 to yourself is to put in a library request for it!
Additionally, since most of my books are tied together in the same world, you would also benefit from reading Archivist Wasp, Latchkey, and Jillian vs. Parasite Planet. Yes, this is a pile of adult, YA, and MG books. No, they don't seem at first glance to remotely belong together. Trust me. :)
I hope you have as much fun reading this one as I had writing it!
August 24, 2023
As soon as I heard of a novella exploring the backstory of a beloved character from Kornher-Stace’s novel Firebreak, I was immediately in. Flight & Anchor did not disappoint; though novella length, it packs both a powerful emotional punch and beautifully, painfully unveils the story behind the motivations of particular characters.
06 and 22’s origin was heartbreaking and moving, which is a testament to the author’s skill. Kornher-Stace is one of the best authors I can think of at writing deeply meaningful, rich platonic relationships. For that alone I will continue to pick up whatever she writes, because Flight & Anchor continues that tradition. Add on great worldbuilding and the impressive ability to weave hope through the entrenched hopelessness of dystopian settings and I am sold as a fan.
Flight & Anchor solidified my desire to go back through the backlist of other titles by Kornher-Stace and start reading them all, since they are all apparently connected and I want to spend as much time in this universe as I can. If you want a short, powerful story of difficult choices made with love in a desperate world, Flight & Anchor is a worthy pickup.
Thank you to Tachyon and Edelweiss for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.
06 and 22’s origin was heartbreaking and moving, which is a testament to the author’s skill. Kornher-Stace is one of the best authors I can think of at writing deeply meaningful, rich platonic relationships. For that alone I will continue to pick up whatever she writes, because Flight & Anchor continues that tradition. Add on great worldbuilding and the impressive ability to weave hope through the entrenched hopelessness of dystopian settings and I am sold as a fan.
Flight & Anchor solidified my desire to go back through the backlist of other titles by Kornher-Stace and start reading them all, since they are all apparently connected and I want to spend as much time in this universe as I can. If you want a short, powerful story of difficult choices made with love in a desperate world, Flight & Anchor is a worthy pickup.
Thank you to Tachyon and Edelweiss for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.
April 22, 2023
Read courtesy of NetGalley.
I think this novella is probably rather wonderful if you've read Kornher-Stace's earlier books, particularly Firebreak, for which it serves as a prequel, or perhaps companion story. Unfortunately, this was my first time reading this author, and thus, it was rather obvious that much of the emotional weight was missing, and my entire review comes down to two things - if you already know and like Firebreak, you'll probably enjoy this, and if you're looking for the first book by Kornher-Stace to check out, this isn't the one.
On its own: the plot is relatively non-dynamic (and would seem even more so if you tried to summarise it), yet the author manages to create an atmosphere and do a lot of introspective character work - still, I felt like the stakes would appear immediately more fraught, and the characters elicit more emotions from me if I knew what I'm meant to know. The worldbuilding is interestingly dystopian. I thought the style was good, but I must admit the voice did not make me that curious to pick up the original novel - I might check it out of a library, if it was available, but felt no urgency, particularly given that the element I liked best - the nanobots - apparently are not from that novel but another story altogether.
I think this novella is probably rather wonderful if you've read Kornher-Stace's earlier books, particularly Firebreak, for which it serves as a prequel, or perhaps companion story. Unfortunately, this was my first time reading this author, and thus, it was rather obvious that much of the emotional weight was missing, and my entire review comes down to two things - if you already know and like Firebreak, you'll probably enjoy this, and if you're looking for the first book by Kornher-Stace to check out, this isn't the one.
On its own: the plot is relatively non-dynamic (and would seem even more so if you tried to summarise it), yet the author manages to create an atmosphere and do a lot of introspective character work - still, I felt like the stakes would appear immediately more fraught, and the characters elicit more emotions from me if I knew what I'm meant to know. The worldbuilding is interestingly dystopian. I thought the style was good, but I must admit the voice did not make me that curious to pick up the original novel - I might check it out of a library, if it was available, but felt no urgency, particularly given that the element I liked best - the nanobots - apparently are not from that novel but another story altogether.
June 11, 2023
I hadn’t read Firebreak, the novel that this novella is a loose prequel to, before I requested Flight & Anchor from Tachyon on NetGalley. Normally I wouldn’t leap into an established world headfirst like this. However, I had a good feeling about this one. It is a standalone story that doesn’t require knowledge of Firebreak. Nicole Kornher-Stace’s writing is very intimate, very in-your-face, and the result is a slow-burn novella that has me wanting to read Firebreak for sure now.
Our protagonists are 06 and 22, cybernetically augmented child soldiers who have just escaped from a Stellaxis facility under control of the Director. She is keeping their escape secret at all costs, for it would be disastrous for her career and this program in general. As 06 and 22 try to survive in an unfamiliar, unkind city, the Director tracks them and observes from afar while trying to conceive of a plan to retrieve them that won’t embarrass her or result in heavy casualties.
The story starts slow. The first few chapters are from the point of view of a barista, Cassie, who otherwise doesn’t return. She is our first introduction to 06 and 22, whom she views as children—odd children, yes, creepy children, perhaps, but children. From there the story alternates between chapters that present 06 or 22’s limited third person viewpoints and chapters that follow the Director or even her ally, a semi-sentient nanoparticle probe she tasks with spying on and sabotaging the children. After 06 and 22 settle into a shipping container they use as a makeshift shelter, they plot their next move. With limited funds, and concerned about being identified and apprehended, they aren’t sure where to go next. They’re only twelve, after all.
So for the first half of the novella, I honestly was unsure what to make of the story and whether or not I was enjoying it. I got it. I understood what Kornher-Stace was trying to do. But I just didn’t see feel it. This changed in the second half, and by the end I was heavily invested in these characters.
The introduction of the probe was the first step towards this change of heart for me. I do love myself a sassy AI, which is essentially what this is. It’s basically the Kronk to the Director’s Yzma, if you know what I mean—an antagonist, technically, but only in the most technical sense. Its shenanigans (for lack of a better term) help propel the plot forward in interesting ways.
The codependency of 06 and 22, referenced in the title, is also so crucial to the story and one’s enjoyment of it. In her afterword, Kornher-Stace connects this to Firebreak, saying that this story gave her the chance to provide a tragic backstory to where we find 22 in that novel. Obviously I don’t have all the context for that statement, but I like it. I really liked the climax and resolution of Flight & Anchor. Kornher-Stace wraps everything up neatly, but the little references throughout the story to “years later” are tantalizing hints at how various characters (particularly our amoral Director) will regret their present decisions.
All in all, by the time I had finished with Flight & Anchor, I was hooked. An obvious comparison would be to Murderbot Diaries—for the length but also the sympathetic killer protagonists—but there are echoes here of numerous other dystopian and cyberpunk worlds I’ve visited in recent years. At the same time, nothing in this setting felt recycled or clichéd to me. Kornher-Stace’s worldbuilding is careful, simple, sufficient. As I said in my introduction, I’m left wanting to read her novel, which is pretty much mission accomplished.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
Our protagonists are 06 and 22, cybernetically augmented child soldiers who have just escaped from a Stellaxis facility under control of the Director. She is keeping their escape secret at all costs, for it would be disastrous for her career and this program in general. As 06 and 22 try to survive in an unfamiliar, unkind city, the Director tracks them and observes from afar while trying to conceive of a plan to retrieve them that won’t embarrass her or result in heavy casualties.
The story starts slow. The first few chapters are from the point of view of a barista, Cassie, who otherwise doesn’t return. She is our first introduction to 06 and 22, whom she views as children—odd children, yes, creepy children, perhaps, but children. From there the story alternates between chapters that present 06 or 22’s limited third person viewpoints and chapters that follow the Director or even her ally, a semi-sentient nanoparticle probe she tasks with spying on and sabotaging the children. After 06 and 22 settle into a shipping container they use as a makeshift shelter, they plot their next move. With limited funds, and concerned about being identified and apprehended, they aren’t sure where to go next. They’re only twelve, after all.
So for the first half of the novella, I honestly was unsure what to make of the story and whether or not I was enjoying it. I got it. I understood what Kornher-Stace was trying to do. But I just didn’t see feel it. This changed in the second half, and by the end I was heavily invested in these characters.
The introduction of the probe was the first step towards this change of heart for me. I do love myself a sassy AI, which is essentially what this is. It’s basically the Kronk to the Director’s Yzma, if you know what I mean—an antagonist, technically, but only in the most technical sense. Its shenanigans (for lack of a better term) help propel the plot forward in interesting ways.
The codependency of 06 and 22, referenced in the title, is also so crucial to the story and one’s enjoyment of it. In her afterword, Kornher-Stace connects this to Firebreak, saying that this story gave her the chance to provide a tragic backstory to where we find 22 in that novel. Obviously I don’t have all the context for that statement, but I like it. I really liked the climax and resolution of Flight & Anchor. Kornher-Stace wraps everything up neatly, but the little references throughout the story to “years later” are tantalizing hints at how various characters (particularly our amoral Director) will regret their present decisions.
All in all, by the time I had finished with Flight & Anchor, I was hooked. An obvious comparison would be to Murderbot Diaries—for the length but also the sympathetic killer protagonists—but there are echoes here of numerous other dystopian and cyberpunk worlds I’ve visited in recent years. At the same time, nothing in this setting felt recycled or clichéd to me. Kornher-Stace’s worldbuilding is careful, simple, sufficient. As I said in my introduction, I’m left wanting to read her novel, which is pretty much mission accomplished.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
June 3, 2023
“If she is the blade that holds the blood in, then he is the wound that endures.”
Thank you to the publishers for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Flight & Anchor is a prequel novella to Firebreak, which I read after hearing “aroace gamer girl science fiction book.” Since this is a prequel, you can technically read this first, but I highly recommend reading Firebreak if you’ve had your eye on this.
Firebreak explores a terrifying dystopian future, where evil corporations have taken over the government completely, at war with one another, letting humanity suffer. There are super soldiers that were created for the war, that double as virtual reality gaming celebrities/branding for the corporation that created them. The main character of Firebreak finds one of the super soldiers in her game, and it launches her into a deep conspiracy, and brings her to meet #22.
Flight & Anchor takes place maybe a decade or so before the events of Firebreak, when 22 and his partner 06 are just heavily modified kids, running away from the corporation for freedom, and the Director trying to hunt them down and return them by any means necessary.
I think it added a lot to 22 and 06, and just really explored what the life was like for the super soldiers, stolen as orphaned kids, subjected to horrific testing and experiments and turned into weapons, which were not able to be explored in Firebreak. This gave them a voice, and their own free will, which the corporation so desperately wishes to strip from them.
It was a worthy story to tell, and Nicole has created a fascinating (and horrifying) future to read about. I don’t read much science fiction but will look for this author in the future as well.
Thank you to the publishers for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Flight & Anchor is a prequel novella to Firebreak, which I read after hearing “aroace gamer girl science fiction book.” Since this is a prequel, you can technically read this first, but I highly recommend reading Firebreak if you’ve had your eye on this.
Firebreak explores a terrifying dystopian future, where evil corporations have taken over the government completely, at war with one another, letting humanity suffer. There are super soldiers that were created for the war, that double as virtual reality gaming celebrities/branding for the corporation that created them. The main character of Firebreak finds one of the super soldiers in her game, and it launches her into a deep conspiracy, and brings her to meet #22.
Flight & Anchor takes place maybe a decade or so before the events of Firebreak, when 22 and his partner 06 are just heavily modified kids, running away from the corporation for freedom, and the Director trying to hunt them down and return them by any means necessary.
I think it added a lot to 22 and 06, and just really explored what the life was like for the super soldiers, stolen as orphaned kids, subjected to horrific testing and experiments and turned into weapons, which were not able to be explored in Firebreak. This gave them a voice, and their own free will, which the corporation so desperately wishes to strip from them.
It was a worthy story to tell, and Nicole has created a fascinating (and horrifying) future to read about. I don’t read much science fiction but will look for this author in the future as well.
December 5, 2023
i'm unwell.
December 9, 2022
Nicole Kornher-Stace quickly became one of my favorite/auto-buy authors after I read her dystopian sci-fi masterpiece, Firebreak, last July. Firebreak was the first audiobook I’d ever sped up all the way to 2.0x playback speed, not because that speed sounded “normal” to me like it does now, but because the story drew me in so thoroughly that I needed to know what would happen next as soon and quickly as possible. It ended up being my favorite 2021 read out of the 145 books I read, and I recommend it every chance I get.
As you can imagine, I was super excited when Flight & Anchor was announced, and it did not disappoint. This is technically a prequel to Firebreak, but I’d recommend reading Firebreak first for the full effect. It was simultaneously delightful and heartbreaking to experience 06 & 22 as preteens, especially knowing how their story eventually ends. I don’t want to say too much and spoil anyone who hasn’t read Firebreak yet (seriously, go do that NOW) so I’ll leave it at that. But my fellow Firebreak fans - you’re in for a treat!
ARC Note: I was sent an ARC of this book by Tachyon Publications for review but all opinions are my own and were not influenced by this.
Love books, too? Let's be friends! Booktok | Bookstagram | Twitter
As you can imagine, I was super excited when Flight & Anchor was announced, and it did not disappoint. This is technically a prequel to Firebreak, but I’d recommend reading Firebreak first for the full effect. It was simultaneously delightful and heartbreaking to experience 06 & 22 as preteens, especially knowing how their story eventually ends. I don’t want to say too much and spoil anyone who hasn’t read Firebreak yet (seriously, go do that NOW) so I’ll leave it at that. But my fellow Firebreak fans - you’re in for a treat!
ARC Note: I was sent an ARC of this book by Tachyon Publications for review but all opinions are my own and were not influenced by this.
Love books, too? Let's be friends! Booktok | Bookstagram | Twitter
January 24, 2024
I'm so sad I didn't like this more! I really liked Firebreak, but I struggled with this one a lot.
I had a hard time with the style of writing, which veered all over the place from short, clipped sentences (including a number of sentences that were just "Etc." - drove me mad), lists with different styles of bullet points (actual bullet points, dashes, numbered lists, a), b), c)...) and long, overly wordy sentences, a lot of times with interjections at odd places in the sentence that made me do a double take to figure out what was being said.
Add on that I felt the characterization was fairly weak, with most things being told to the reader instead of shown, and not a whole lot happening... it just did not work for me. Super bummed :(
I had a hard time with the style of writing, which veered all over the place from short, clipped sentences (including a number of sentences that were just "Etc." - drove me mad), lists with different styles of bullet points (actual bullet points, dashes, numbered lists, a), b), c)...) and long, overly wordy sentences, a lot of times with interjections at odd places in the sentence that made me do a double take to figure out what was being said.
Add on that I felt the characterization was fairly weak, with most things being told to the reader instead of shown, and not a whole lot happening... it just did not work for me. Super bummed :(
February 13, 2023
Flight & Anchor: A Firebreak Story
by Nicole Kornher-Stace
Publication Date: 13 Jun 2023
Full disclosure: I read this from a free review copy off Netgalley.
Synopsis: In short (and I do mean short, because the book itself is roughly novella length at 139 pages double spaced), this is a story set in the world of another of the author's works, Firebreak, about a city gripped by a war between two corporate entities, with a team of bio-engineered super soldiers at the heart of the conflict. This story features two of those—06, a girl, and 22, a boy—as preteens trying to escape the corporate facility that grabbed them as small war orphans and turned them into killing machines.
They escape and, rather than making their way out of the city as originally planned, hole up in an abandoned container and scavenge for food in the harsh city winter. The whole time, the nameless facility Director monitors their location by vital signs and tries to hide her failure in letting them escape.
Review: I suppose I just have to say this one wasn't for me. It seems built knowing these children as characters, without giving any real reason to WANT to; since I haven't read Firebreak, and thus don't have any grasp on what they do or their significance, my interest just slides off them like glass. This could also be due to the fact that this very brief story spends SO MUCH TIME on mundane details of survival (with a nearly two page listing of the random detritus they scavenge in their abandoned lot, that then plays absolutely no part in their story).
There are also clear allusions to events that happen years after the story—clearly referring to Firebreak—that are frustratingly pointless to this actual narrative, and so simply stand out as enormous flashing "Hey, remember this part?" signs. I don't, actually.
I was also bemused by how the book spent 13 pages, fully 10% of its length, in the largely uneventful and pointless interaction between a barista, Cass, and these two nameless children, which again had no bearing on the characters' further actions or development. In terms of Chekhov's gun, there were like four shotguns (Offscreen characters, suspicions, potential friends, potential foes) in that scene, and none of them ever fired. It was essentially 13 pages of "Then they got some cast off coats and stale donuts." Which they later did AGAIN after digging through the garbage.
That scene did successfully shake my affinity for "they" as a singular pronoun, since it featured Cass as "they" interacting with two unnamed people acting as a unit whom Cass immediately identified as "boy" and "girl" because I guess that's what a non-binary person does on first meeting preteens? Anyway, it was tortuous and difficult to get through, and served so little purpose in so many pages that I very nearly stopped reading once I realized it just hadn't mattered.
However, when something actually happened—the intriguing nanobot array that filled the so necessary "snarky sub character" slot showing up, the roughly two pages of action at the end, etc.—it was fun. The writing itself in the use of language and pacing are really quite good, so that was a pleasant part of the experience.
Overall, I'd give this three of five stars, for deft sentences and glimpses of an intriguing world, with marks off for not a whole lot happening that makes sense to this non-Firebreak reader.
by Nicole Kornher-Stace
Publication Date: 13 Jun 2023
Full disclosure: I read this from a free review copy off Netgalley.
Synopsis: In short (and I do mean short, because the book itself is roughly novella length at 139 pages double spaced), this is a story set in the world of another of the author's works, Firebreak, about a city gripped by a war between two corporate entities, with a team of bio-engineered super soldiers at the heart of the conflict. This story features two of those—06, a girl, and 22, a boy—as preteens trying to escape the corporate facility that grabbed them as small war orphans and turned them into killing machines.
They escape and, rather than making their way out of the city as originally planned, hole up in an abandoned container and scavenge for food in the harsh city winter. The whole time, the nameless facility Director monitors their location by vital signs and tries to hide her failure in letting them escape.
Review: I suppose I just have to say this one wasn't for me. It seems built knowing these children as characters, without giving any real reason to WANT to; since I haven't read Firebreak, and thus don't have any grasp on what they do or their significance, my interest just slides off them like glass. This could also be due to the fact that this very brief story spends SO MUCH TIME on mundane details of survival (with a nearly two page listing of the random detritus they scavenge in their abandoned lot, that then plays absolutely no part in their story).
There are also clear allusions to events that happen years after the story—clearly referring to Firebreak—that are frustratingly pointless to this actual narrative, and so simply stand out as enormous flashing "Hey, remember this part?" signs. I don't, actually.
I was also bemused by how the book spent 13 pages, fully 10% of its length, in the largely uneventful and pointless interaction between a barista, Cass, and these two nameless children, which again had no bearing on the characters' further actions or development. In terms of Chekhov's gun, there were like four shotguns (Offscreen characters, suspicions, potential friends, potential foes) in that scene, and none of them ever fired. It was essentially 13 pages of "Then they got some cast off coats and stale donuts." Which they later did AGAIN after digging through the garbage.
That scene did successfully shake my affinity for "they" as a singular pronoun, since it featured Cass as "they" interacting with two unnamed people acting as a unit whom Cass immediately identified as "boy" and "girl" because I guess that's what a non-binary person does on first meeting preteens? Anyway, it was tortuous and difficult to get through, and served so little purpose in so many pages that I very nearly stopped reading once I realized it just hadn't mattered.
However, when something actually happened—the intriguing nanobot array that filled the so necessary "snarky sub character" slot showing up, the roughly two pages of action at the end, etc.—it was fun. The writing itself in the use of language and pacing are really quite good, so that was a pleasant part of the experience.
Overall, I'd give this three of five stars, for deft sentences and glimpses of an intriguing world, with marks off for not a whole lot happening that makes sense to this non-Firebreak reader.
Read
March 3, 2023I was so happy to be able to read Flight&Anchor in an advanced copy!
06 and 22 run away from Stellaxis. The Director thinks they’ll come back soon –she’s keeping an eye on them, but while she’s waiting for them to come back (because sending someone to die while retrieving them is not an option), both children prove they are way more resourceful tan she imagined.
I loved reading again about 22. After Firebreak I felt I needed to know more about him, and this books doesn’t dissapoint: it’s slower so it can focus in character development, getting to know their past and learn about their present. Flight&Anchor is a very different book than Firebreak –it has a lot less action scenes and characters, and less political content (if you can skip that the main characters are literally child soldiers and they are kidnapped). Instead, we have plenty of time with two characters we wanted to know more of, and a couple of new ones as a gift.
If I have to summarize the book, it doesn’t feel like a lot of things happened. The argument itself is simple, and it doesn’t have big plot twists or surprises. But I didn’t feel it was boring or repetitive. There aren’t a lot of things going on, but we keep knowing new things about the characters and the world all the time –and that what we wanted.
In Firebreak I fell in love with 22, but after this book I’m loving 06 as well. And I hate Stellaxis even more.
I really liked this book. If you also wanted to know better the chacters and about their past, read it.
TW: calories counting and food analizing. I haven’t seen anyone mentioning this, but please be aware that this is something that happens a couple of times.
By Laura Huelin
06 and 22 run away from Stellaxis. The Director thinks they’ll come back soon –she’s keeping an eye on them, but while she’s waiting for them to come back (because sending someone to die while retrieving them is not an option), both children prove they are way more resourceful tan she imagined.
I loved reading again about 22. After Firebreak I felt I needed to know more about him, and this books doesn’t dissapoint: it’s slower so it can focus in character development, getting to know their past and learn about their present. Flight&Anchor is a very different book than Firebreak –it has a lot less action scenes and characters, and less political content (if you can skip that the main characters are literally child soldiers and they are kidnapped). Instead, we have plenty of time with two characters we wanted to know more of, and a couple of new ones as a gift.
If I have to summarize the book, it doesn’t feel like a lot of things happened. The argument itself is simple, and it doesn’t have big plot twists or surprises. But I didn’t feel it was boring or repetitive. There aren’t a lot of things going on, but we keep knowing new things about the characters and the world all the time –and that what we wanted.
In Firebreak I fell in love with 22, but after this book I’m loving 06 as well. And I hate Stellaxis even more.
I really liked this book. If you also wanted to know better the chacters and about their past, read it.
TW: calories counting and food analizing. I haven’t seen anyone mentioning this, but please be aware that this is something that happens a couple of times.
By Laura Huelin
July 12, 2023
Listen, if you're not reading Nicole Kornher-Stace yet, you're missing out. Correct this immediately.
They take a cozy, nostalgic idea - the Boxcar Children series - then set it in the dystopian future corporate city of New Liberty with genetically and technologically modified children operatives who have planned an escape - and succeeded! - right under the Director's nose.
06 and 22 are amazing characters, and I'm so happy to have gotten more of them as 12-year-olds relying on each other in a world they don't quite understand and barely remember. They are ride-or-die, jagged edges that fit perfectly together, and I will read literally anything about them forever and always.
You don't need to have read their previous works to understand this story, but honestly why wouldn't you anyway?
They take a cozy, nostalgic idea - the Boxcar Children series - then set it in the dystopian future corporate city of New Liberty with genetically and technologically modified children operatives who have planned an escape - and succeeded! - right under the Director's nose.
06 and 22 are amazing characters, and I'm so happy to have gotten more of them as 12-year-olds relying on each other in a world they don't quite understand and barely remember. They are ride-or-die, jagged edges that fit perfectly together, and I will read literally anything about them forever and always.
You don't need to have read their previous works to understand this story, but honestly why wouldn't you anyway?
July 7, 2023
Nicole Kornher-Stace is becoming one of my favorite authors. Read her, y'all.
March 8, 2024
A few reviews here led me to believe that I could read this as a standalone novel, without reading Firebreak. I don't recommend it. It's not that you won't understand the events of this book, it's that they won't mean anything to you.
The author essentially admits in her afterwords that she put in Easter eggs for her other work and that the main character gains a major character motivation for his actions in Firebreak.
Without this context, you're left with a threadbare book where essentially nothing happens. Seriously, you could summarize all the plot points of this book on one page without missing a thing.
I kept watching the progress on my Kindle climbing higher and higher... 60, 70, 80%. And nothing was happening.
And then the denouement was so boring and anticlimactic. The best thing I can say about this book is that it's short. You won't waste much of your life reading it.
The author essentially admits in her afterwords that she put in Easter eggs for her other work and that the main character gains a major character motivation for his actions in Firebreak.
Without this context, you're left with a threadbare book where essentially nothing happens. Seriously, you could summarize all the plot points of this book on one page without missing a thing.
I kept watching the progress on my Kindle climbing higher and higher... 60, 70, 80%. And nothing was happening.
And then the denouement was so boring and anticlimactic. The best thing I can say about this book is that it's short. You won't waste much of your life reading it.
October 30, 2024
I heard somewhere that the reason a lot of dystopian novels fail is because they over-emphasize the bleakness of the world and forget about the small moments of joy and warmth that make things worth fighting for. And I think that's exactly why makes the Firebreak universe such a masterpiece; it does have those little achingly human moments.
September 27, 2024
The front cover labels this "a Firebreak story", meaning that it's part of a universe that the author has created for her novel 'Firebreak', but which doesn't fit into the flow of the series I presume it'll soon become. I'm taking it as a standalone story that explores a particular moment in the lives of a couple of the characters in that series to be, whether they're primary characters there or not. Even if they turn out to be peripheral support in the series, what they do here clearly represents a chink in the armour of the pivotal group in the broader story.
That group are supersoldiers in the Stellaxis program, but this isn't military science fiction. At least I don't think it is as a series and it certainly isn't in this short novel. It feels like a dystopian vision of our corporate overlords, where the abilities of these soldiers isn't close to as important as whether they're still human or not and whether they still feel that they retain a level of humanity. I caught a lot of 'Murderbot' vibes here, sans any of its sassiness, because of a combination of unsurspassable power and blissful naïveté, but these particular soldiers started as human beings, refugee children in fact, but were enhanced within the program.
That's a key discovery in 'Firebreak', one that's included in the Goodreads synopsis so I presume it's not a spoiler, but it's a given here because 06 and 22 fundamentally appear as the children they still are. They've escaped from the program, into which they were kidnapped, and they fashioned vague plans to do something about it, but they are what they are and the title has meaning, so they shack up in an abandoned shipping container and try to figure out their next move.
Now, even though they look like children, they're still supersoldiers, so incredibly dangerous that it would be a catastrophic mistake to mess with them. And that goes just as much for the Director of the program they've escaped as for any random member of the public who might see an easy score. She needs to bring them back home and, even though they've removed their lenses so aren't quite as easy to track, she knows exactly where they are and has some very cool future tech to help her to retrieve them. In fact, one example of that advanced tech is a character in itself, a sentient swarm of nanobots called Sabrina (Semi-Autonomous Bio-Reconnoitering Intelligent Nanobot Array) and I found "her" fascinating.
So, even though we have a feeling this isn't going to be the grand adventure that it initially seems, eventually turning into the closed loop that the title suggests, it's actually rather tense. It's a cat and mouse game between two fugitives who don't really go anywhere and their handler who can't do any of the usual things that might come to mind to bring them back. Force isn't going to work; it may even backfire horribly. She can't do it against their will, or it would affect morale in the others. And so she has to figure out a way to manipulate them into finding the realisation that they might want to come back on their own. And that means a serious game of chess.
I liked this and it works as a standalone, but it also feels like it would have worked much better if I'd read 'Firebreak' first. I didn't need to know anything specific from it to understand what happens in this side story, but I missed the depth in worldbuilding that I assume would come from reading that novel. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel for these supersoldiers, who are intriguingly both the victims of their story and the celebrities in their world, but I presume sympathy is a big part of it, a big enough part of it that I have a feeling I'd bring it with me to this book and I just didn't have it.
Clearly, we're supposed to be on the side of 06 and 22, their impersonal names underlining it; but, the longer the book ran on, the more I found myself fascinated by the Director. I wouldn't say that she's a particularly deep character here, because she's not given the opportunity to be in a story clearly intended to be all about her opponents, but she's not a one-note villain and the ramifications of her position and situation kept growing. Oddly, that means that while this gave me an impression that I should have read 'Firebreak' first, it's also a pretty solid advert for it. I want to know more and it's pretty obvious that that book is where I'll find it.
What's also telling is that the synopsis for 'Firebreak' suggests that the Stellaxis supersoldiers are not the leads there but the background. I get the impression that the story is all about them, but it unfolds through the perspective of someone else, an orphaned child of the corporate war who was not kidnapped into the program and encounters it from the outside. I wonder how much we get to see of the Director in that book. I'm increasingly eager to find out, as well to discover what event is going to happen eight years down the road, something repeatedly hinted at here that consistently went over my head.
Originally posted at the Nameless Zine in June 2023:
https://www.thenamelesszine.org/Books...
Index of all my Nameless Zine reviews:
https://books.apocalypselaterempire.com/
That group are supersoldiers in the Stellaxis program, but this isn't military science fiction. At least I don't think it is as a series and it certainly isn't in this short novel. It feels like a dystopian vision of our corporate overlords, where the abilities of these soldiers isn't close to as important as whether they're still human or not and whether they still feel that they retain a level of humanity. I caught a lot of 'Murderbot' vibes here, sans any of its sassiness, because of a combination of unsurspassable power and blissful naïveté, but these particular soldiers started as human beings, refugee children in fact, but were enhanced within the program.
That's a key discovery in 'Firebreak', one that's included in the Goodreads synopsis so I presume it's not a spoiler, but it's a given here because 06 and 22 fundamentally appear as the children they still are. They've escaped from the program, into which they were kidnapped, and they fashioned vague plans to do something about it, but they are what they are and the title has meaning, so they shack up in an abandoned shipping container and try to figure out their next move.
Now, even though they look like children, they're still supersoldiers, so incredibly dangerous that it would be a catastrophic mistake to mess with them. And that goes just as much for the Director of the program they've escaped as for any random member of the public who might see an easy score. She needs to bring them back home and, even though they've removed their lenses so aren't quite as easy to track, she knows exactly where they are and has some very cool future tech to help her to retrieve them. In fact, one example of that advanced tech is a character in itself, a sentient swarm of nanobots called Sabrina (Semi-Autonomous Bio-Reconnoitering Intelligent Nanobot Array) and I found "her" fascinating.
So, even though we have a feeling this isn't going to be the grand adventure that it initially seems, eventually turning into the closed loop that the title suggests, it's actually rather tense. It's a cat and mouse game between two fugitives who don't really go anywhere and their handler who can't do any of the usual things that might come to mind to bring them back. Force isn't going to work; it may even backfire horribly. She can't do it against their will, or it would affect morale in the others. And so she has to figure out a way to manipulate them into finding the realisation that they might want to come back on their own. And that means a serious game of chess.
I liked this and it works as a standalone, but it also feels like it would have worked much better if I'd read 'Firebreak' first. I didn't need to know anything specific from it to understand what happens in this side story, but I missed the depth in worldbuilding that I assume would come from reading that novel. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel for these supersoldiers, who are intriguingly both the victims of their story and the celebrities in their world, but I presume sympathy is a big part of it, a big enough part of it that I have a feeling I'd bring it with me to this book and I just didn't have it.
Clearly, we're supposed to be on the side of 06 and 22, their impersonal names underlining it; but, the longer the book ran on, the more I found myself fascinated by the Director. I wouldn't say that she's a particularly deep character here, because she's not given the opportunity to be in a story clearly intended to be all about her opponents, but she's not a one-note villain and the ramifications of her position and situation kept growing. Oddly, that means that while this gave me an impression that I should have read 'Firebreak' first, it's also a pretty solid advert for it. I want to know more and it's pretty obvious that that book is where I'll find it.
What's also telling is that the synopsis for 'Firebreak' suggests that the Stellaxis supersoldiers are not the leads there but the background. I get the impression that the story is all about them, but it unfolds through the perspective of someone else, an orphaned child of the corporate war who was not kidnapped into the program and encounters it from the outside. I wonder how much we get to see of the Director in that book. I'm increasingly eager to find out, as well to discover what event is going to happen eight years down the road, something repeatedly hinted at here that consistently went over my head.
Originally posted at the Nameless Zine in June 2023:
https://www.thenamelesszine.org/Books...
Index of all my Nameless Zine reviews:
https://books.apocalypselaterempire.com/
February 23, 2023
First, please take note that I have not read Firebreak.
I got this as an ARC and was pumped to dive in! It's a sci-fi YA about two twelve year old super-tech-warrior-soldiers who escape the evil people who have genetically altered them. The premise holds tons of promise! I was on board to learn more about these two young characters, and I felt that their bond took center stage as the story progressed.
I read the entire book, noted some pros and cons, made mentions of promising storylines for the rest of the series, and then I happened to be scrolling through Twitter when I came upon the author's feed. That's when I learned that I had read the book incorrectly! LOL! It turns out that Flight & Anchor is a love letter to fans who adored Firebreak and wanted to learn more about these two characters. From what I could tell, this is not a series. Fire & Anchor is not a sequel (although, I read it as such). Fire & Anchor is a slice of the Firebreak pie, and once I knew that, everything got turned upside down.
Please note that there is no "Note from the Author" or prologue informing readers about this, and I do think it makes a big difference.
Before understand where this book fits into the Firebreak world, I took specific notes about the Director. She's the woman running the compound/prison where the two twelve years old are being held/trained. In Fire & Anchor, she knows exactly where the characters are at all times, meaning when the two tweens run away, she knows their precise hiding location. Even so, she doesn't act. She desperately wants and needs them to come back, but she doesn't do anything to make that happen, at least, not until late in the story. I found her character frustrating and her lack of action unbelievable considering the stakes. Yes, she gave reasons for her lack of speed coming up with a plan, but I didn't find them realistic or organic to the situation.
Now, after learning this story was written after Firebreak and as an aside, I was left wondering if her character's lack of action is tied into the larger story in a way that I won't understand as someone who hasn't read Firebreak. It seems that Firebreak is the complete story, encompassing a large timeline, which leads me to my second note.
In Fire & Anchor, the author offsets certain future information with parenthesis. For example, it may say something like, "The Director had to make a split second decision (Eight years from now, she'll be laying on the floor, realizing she'd made the wrong choice)." These parentheses are common in the book and provide spoilers, some more in-depth than others. I assumed this was put in to entice readers to continue on with the series. Now, I'm guessing all the asides have already happened in Firebreak.
Without a note to the reader, I had a very different reading experience than I imagine readers of Firebreak will have. When I discovered the intended purpose of the book, I felt a little frustrated that the information wasn't given beforehand. I do feel it's necessary to know and understand that this is not a sequel, and these books are not a series. Also, this is not a stand alone book. If readers who haven't read Firebreak read Flight & Anchor first, Firebreak is majorly spoiled.
With all that said, I did find the Director's actions to lack believability, and I did find the middle of the book to lag at times. That could be because this story has to fit into a preconceived world that already exists. Even so, I did find the book to be a little repetitive at times and, overall, just wasn't for me.
I'm certain fans of Firebreak will have a completely different experience.
I got this as an ARC and was pumped to dive in! It's a sci-fi YA about two twelve year old super-tech-warrior-soldiers who escape the evil people who have genetically altered them. The premise holds tons of promise! I was on board to learn more about these two young characters, and I felt that their bond took center stage as the story progressed.
I read the entire book, noted some pros and cons, made mentions of promising storylines for the rest of the series, and then I happened to be scrolling through Twitter when I came upon the author's feed. That's when I learned that I had read the book incorrectly! LOL! It turns out that Flight & Anchor is a love letter to fans who adored Firebreak and wanted to learn more about these two characters. From what I could tell, this is not a series. Fire & Anchor is not a sequel (although, I read it as such). Fire & Anchor is a slice of the Firebreak pie, and once I knew that, everything got turned upside down.
Please note that there is no "Note from the Author" or prologue informing readers about this, and I do think it makes a big difference.
Before understand where this book fits into the Firebreak world, I took specific notes about the Director. She's the woman running the compound/prison where the two twelve years old are being held/trained. In Fire & Anchor, she knows exactly where the characters are at all times, meaning when the two tweens run away, she knows their precise hiding location. Even so, she doesn't act. She desperately wants and needs them to come back, but she doesn't do anything to make that happen, at least, not until late in the story. I found her character frustrating and her lack of action unbelievable considering the stakes. Yes, she gave reasons for her lack of speed coming up with a plan, but I didn't find them realistic or organic to the situation.
Now, after learning this story was written after Firebreak and as an aside, I was left wondering if her character's lack of action is tied into the larger story in a way that I won't understand as someone who hasn't read Firebreak. It seems that Firebreak is the complete story, encompassing a large timeline, which leads me to my second note.
In Fire & Anchor, the author offsets certain future information with parenthesis. For example, it may say something like, "The Director had to make a split second decision (Eight years from now, she'll be laying on the floor, realizing she'd made the wrong choice)." These parentheses are common in the book and provide spoilers, some more in-depth than others. I assumed this was put in to entice readers to continue on with the series. Now, I'm guessing all the asides have already happened in Firebreak.
Without a note to the reader, I had a very different reading experience than I imagine readers of Firebreak will have. When I discovered the intended purpose of the book, I felt a little frustrated that the information wasn't given beforehand. I do feel it's necessary to know and understand that this is not a sequel, and these books are not a series. Also, this is not a stand alone book. If readers who haven't read Firebreak read Flight & Anchor first, Firebreak is majorly spoiled.
With all that said, I did find the Director's actions to lack believability, and I did find the middle of the book to lag at times. That could be because this story has to fit into a preconceived world that already exists. Even so, I did find the book to be a little repetitive at times and, overall, just wasn't for me.
I'm certain fans of Firebreak will have a completely different experience.
May 17, 2023
My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Tachyon Publishing for an advanced copy of this prequel novella about two lost children, a city of confusion and the evil Director who wants to bring them back to the lab they escaped from.
A barista looks up from her work on a snowy night to see two children, a boy and a girl, wearing mix-matched coats with plastic bags on their shoes staring into the window, taking in the warmth, the food and the light. The barista brings them inside, gives them more sugar and caffeine than the two children have ever had, and wonders where the two quiet children have come from. They seem odd, lost. Turning to make call the children disappear back into the blizzard, with clothing from the lost and found and bag of day-old sugar treats. On the counter is a thank you, left in soy whipped cream. This could be the start of an series of young adult adventures, or even a fable, though this fable has a dystopian future, corporate civil wars, bacterial monitors and child supersoldiers. Flight & Anchor: A Firebreak Story by Nicole Kornher-Stace is a prequel story to the aforementioned Firebreak, featuring characters attempting their first try at freedom, and learning a whole lot more.
06 and 22 are the supersoldiers of the future, at least that is what they are marketed as. War orphans from the many corporate civil wars that have destroyed huge parts of the city the company has used these children to create a new generation or warriors. They have become stronger, faster, better, and more, so much more. 06 and 22 can move faster than cameras, for longer periods of time, kill in ways that are too brutal to describe. And both 06 and 22 are sick of it and want out. 06 and 22 were brought together to keep an eye on each other, but both have become friends in a way, and plan to escape, which they are successful at. However they are only 12 years old, and the city is not what they expect. So while they won the escape, the are losing at the surviving, taking shelter only blocks away from the lab they escaped in a shipping container. The Director of the program knows that getting the two back will be messy, costly and probably not very good publicity for the Director. However rank has its privilege, and part of that is access to old tech, tech that might bring the wayward supersoldiers home.
This is a prequel to the novel Firebreak featuring characters that appear later, but that is not a hindrance to enjoying this book. In fact I never read the main book, but I had a very good time reading this, and am looking forward to reading pretty much everything Kornher-Stace has written. The writing is very good, with a feel of a classic young adult story, with a lot of fascinating technology and ideas, a bit of violence, but a lot of love and friendship. The world is different, exciting and scary, and I want to know more about it, and how it fits with further adventures. There is plenty of humor, a lot of foreshadowing for the later book, which made me interested to know more. I really liked the story and how it felt like a fable, wicked creatures, lost children, evil Director.
Recommended for science fiction writers of course, also for fantasy readers too for the urban fantasy feeling that comes across. I think this would be a good introduction to Kornher-Stace's work, as I know it hooked me and made me want to know more.
A barista looks up from her work on a snowy night to see two children, a boy and a girl, wearing mix-matched coats with plastic bags on their shoes staring into the window, taking in the warmth, the food and the light. The barista brings them inside, gives them more sugar and caffeine than the two children have ever had, and wonders where the two quiet children have come from. They seem odd, lost. Turning to make call the children disappear back into the blizzard, with clothing from the lost and found and bag of day-old sugar treats. On the counter is a thank you, left in soy whipped cream. This could be the start of an series of young adult adventures, or even a fable, though this fable has a dystopian future, corporate civil wars, bacterial monitors and child supersoldiers. Flight & Anchor: A Firebreak Story by Nicole Kornher-Stace is a prequel story to the aforementioned Firebreak, featuring characters attempting their first try at freedom, and learning a whole lot more.
06 and 22 are the supersoldiers of the future, at least that is what they are marketed as. War orphans from the many corporate civil wars that have destroyed huge parts of the city the company has used these children to create a new generation or warriors. They have become stronger, faster, better, and more, so much more. 06 and 22 can move faster than cameras, for longer periods of time, kill in ways that are too brutal to describe. And both 06 and 22 are sick of it and want out. 06 and 22 were brought together to keep an eye on each other, but both have become friends in a way, and plan to escape, which they are successful at. However they are only 12 years old, and the city is not what they expect. So while they won the escape, the are losing at the surviving, taking shelter only blocks away from the lab they escaped in a shipping container. The Director of the program knows that getting the two back will be messy, costly and probably not very good publicity for the Director. However rank has its privilege, and part of that is access to old tech, tech that might bring the wayward supersoldiers home.
This is a prequel to the novel Firebreak featuring characters that appear later, but that is not a hindrance to enjoying this book. In fact I never read the main book, but I had a very good time reading this, and am looking forward to reading pretty much everything Kornher-Stace has written. The writing is very good, with a feel of a classic young adult story, with a lot of fascinating technology and ideas, a bit of violence, but a lot of love and friendship. The world is different, exciting and scary, and I want to know more about it, and how it fits with further adventures. There is plenty of humor, a lot of foreshadowing for the later book, which made me interested to know more. I really liked the story and how it felt like a fable, wicked creatures, lost children, evil Director.
Recommended for science fiction writers of course, also for fantasy readers too for the urban fantasy feeling that comes across. I think this would be a good introduction to Kornher-Stace's work, as I know it hooked me and made me want to know more.
April 8, 2023
The short novel Flight & Anchor is a prequel to Nicole Kornher-Stace’s 2021 Locus-Recommended-Reading-List Firebreak. This plot tells a formative episode in the lives of the relatively unexplored secondary characters of 06 and 22 from that dystopian future story. Story-wise it does stand alone without first reading Firebreak, but honestly, digging further into the world and characters of Firebreak is pretty much the motivation for reading this. While I think it would have been best to work this storyline as a parallel plot within the original novel, this could probably be read first.
In it, 06 and 22 are only in their 4th year of modification and indoctrination byt the Stellaxis Corporation, and they are naïve in the ways of the world, in their own abilities, and in the scope of the enterprise rebuilding them into public fighting machines. Images from their pre-abduction lives are elusive, but do still exist in their memories. The ending is a foregone conclusion, given the situation of 06 and 22 a few years later in Firebreak, which undermines some of the plot tension now. And very little additional world-building takes place. But for fans thirsting for backstory on the characters of 06 and 22, this fills a needed gap in their development. The reader is left with a better understanding of the anchoring motivations of 22, and a bit of foreshadowing of the world set-up. Recommended reading for those who enjoyed Firebreak. There is also a short story “Pathfinding!” available online in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 38, concerning 06 and 22 at age 15. https://www.uncannymagazine.com/artic...
Firebreak is marketed as adult science fiction, but I found it to be transitional between adult and YA; Flight & Anchor is more solidly YA. The characters of 06 and 22 are quite young, maybe 13, with a relationship appropriate to that age, and their nemesis is the same stick-figure authority known only as The Director. The shipping container setting in this book pays homage to the children’s classic series, The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner.
I read an Advance Reader Copy of Flight & Anchor in trade paperback format, which I received directly from Tachyon Publications in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 1 June 2023.
In it, 06 and 22 are only in their 4th year of modification and indoctrination byt the Stellaxis Corporation, and they are naïve in the ways of the world, in their own abilities, and in the scope of the enterprise rebuilding them into public fighting machines. Images from their pre-abduction lives are elusive, but do still exist in their memories. The ending is a foregone conclusion, given the situation of 06 and 22 a few years later in Firebreak, which undermines some of the plot tension now. And very little additional world-building takes place. But for fans thirsting for backstory on the characters of 06 and 22, this fills a needed gap in their development. The reader is left with a better understanding of the anchoring motivations of 22, and a bit of foreshadowing of the world set-up. Recommended reading for those who enjoyed Firebreak. There is also a short story “Pathfinding!” available online in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 38, concerning 06 and 22 at age 15. https://www.uncannymagazine.com/artic...
Firebreak is marketed as adult science fiction, but I found it to be transitional between adult and YA; Flight & Anchor is more solidly YA. The characters of 06 and 22 are quite young, maybe 13, with a relationship appropriate to that age, and their nemesis is the same stick-figure authority known only as The Director. The shipping container setting in this book pays homage to the children’s classic series, The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner.
I read an Advance Reader Copy of Flight & Anchor in trade paperback format, which I received directly from Tachyon Publications in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 1 June 2023.
April 16, 2023
You're the director of the Stellaxis super soldier program. Your job is to take young children and turn them into warriors to help you win a civil war in a (to the reader) nameless city. Two of your prized specimens, numbered 06 and 22, have escaped into the city in the dead of winter. They are dangerous, as all super soldiers are: fast, strong, keen eyesight, and all the rest of it. 06 has been the rebellious one, but the two of them are close. They protect each other, to the point of giving their lives to save the other one. Your job is to capture them
and bring them back to Stellaxis to continue their training until they're ready to go to war.
This should be an easy job. You know where they're at and generally what they're doing. You don't necessarily know why they decided to escape, but that doesn't matter at this point in time. You need to get them back. The whole thing is a bit of a mess, though. Within the program at Stellaxis, you need to fabricate excuses why the pair are not in their various classes. You need to hide the whole affair from your superiors, because it certainly wouldn't look good on your record to have two very expensive projects get away. And it's not easy in a world where everything is under surveillance. Sending out a few of the other super kids to retrieve them, or worse, some adult squad, would possibly result in bad press and would most likely result in a lot of blood
being shed. So you try to think of strategies to undermine their partnership. Maybe turn them against each other. Send some old, discarded tech after them. Things like that. But no matter what you do, 06 and 22 are not giving up. They don't like it at Stellaxis, and they don't want to go back.
Just what are the two of them doing? Trying to survive in a world they've been sheltered from and know absolutely nothing about. They're sleeping in an abandoned storage container and basically scrounging to survive. They don't know what they want to do, how they're going to do it, and where they're going. The only thing they do know is that they don't want to go back to Stellaxis. It's a marvelous game of chess, really. The Director thinks she's going to win, but every decision she makes turns out to not give the result she needs. 06 and 22 know the director is watching them, so they're doing the best they can to make the Director's life miserable. And they do get a bit of help from an unexpected source.
I was a bit concerned coming in to the story, as I hadn't previously read FIREBREAK. It turns out there was nothing to be concerned about. While the story takes place in the Firebreak universe, it can be read as a standalone. Kornher-Stace does a good job of giving the reader just enough background of the world we're in without bogging the book down. And she makes FLIGHT AND ANCHOR a fun read. While it's not lighthearted by any means, it's light enough that it's a good, fast paced read. The novel is well written, the characters are interesting, and the plot is engaging. It's almost fun to watch 06 and 22 foil the Director's plans, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. FLIGHT AND ANCHOR is a book I recommend, and as a result of reading it I
want to go back and read FIREBREAK.
and bring them back to Stellaxis to continue their training until they're ready to go to war.
This should be an easy job. You know where they're at and generally what they're doing. You don't necessarily know why they decided to escape, but that doesn't matter at this point in time. You need to get them back. The whole thing is a bit of a mess, though. Within the program at Stellaxis, you need to fabricate excuses why the pair are not in their various classes. You need to hide the whole affair from your superiors, because it certainly wouldn't look good on your record to have two very expensive projects get away. And it's not easy in a world where everything is under surveillance. Sending out a few of the other super kids to retrieve them, or worse, some adult squad, would possibly result in bad press and would most likely result in a lot of blood
being shed. So you try to think of strategies to undermine their partnership. Maybe turn them against each other. Send some old, discarded tech after them. Things like that. But no matter what you do, 06 and 22 are not giving up. They don't like it at Stellaxis, and they don't want to go back.
Just what are the two of them doing? Trying to survive in a world they've been sheltered from and know absolutely nothing about. They're sleeping in an abandoned storage container and basically scrounging to survive. They don't know what they want to do, how they're going to do it, and where they're going. The only thing they do know is that they don't want to go back to Stellaxis. It's a marvelous game of chess, really. The Director thinks she's going to win, but every decision she makes turns out to not give the result she needs. 06 and 22 know the director is watching them, so they're doing the best they can to make the Director's life miserable. And they do get a bit of help from an unexpected source.
I was a bit concerned coming in to the story, as I hadn't previously read FIREBREAK. It turns out there was nothing to be concerned about. While the story takes place in the Firebreak universe, it can be read as a standalone. Kornher-Stace does a good job of giving the reader just enough background of the world we're in without bogging the book down. And she makes FLIGHT AND ANCHOR a fun read. While it's not lighthearted by any means, it's light enough that it's a good, fast paced read. The novel is well written, the characters are interesting, and the plot is engaging. It's almost fun to watch 06 and 22 foil the Director's plans, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. FLIGHT AND ANCHOR is a book I recommend, and as a result of reading it I
want to go back and read FIREBREAK.
June 12, 2023
This was a novella but it felt longer than the actual novel that it accompanies.
I did receive a copy in exchange for a book tour. The review is my own and separate from the tour.
I read Firebreak when I was approved for this copy. I thought firebreak was just okay. It set up an interesting world, and interesting online MMO situation, some cool characters, some sketchy super soldier practices, and awful capitalist companies. I thought the pacing was off and there were some finer details of the worldbuilding that didn't make full sense, but it was alright.
However, this book, which serves as a prequel for the operatives 06 and 22 when they were 12 years old, is not great. I understand that due to it being a prequel, we know what happens to this character, but the characters don't and are living in their situation, but I do find it frustrating when authors make stakes and pretend to follow along with them when we know that the stakes aren't real because we know how things end in the main book. We have 06 and 22 running away and trying to live life on their own. It's like a bad survival novel. Instead of making it a cool new world exploration type thing, relishing in the freedom of everything, they're laying low for vague reasons and grocery shopping and putting bags over their shoes. And then we have one of them getting sick and convinced that they're dying, but we know they're alive in Firebreak so there's no stakes.
And they don't read like 12 year olds. I get that they've been super soldiered up so I figured that my own inability to picture them as children was due to my own failure to suspend disbelief. But then in the author's note she talks about how she tried to write them when they were younger, before they lost all their memories of their lives before, so now I'm pretty certain that they were just written as mini adults.
All of these qualms are definitely me-problems, so it's also hard for me to understand if the fact this book felt a million pages long was part of my own dislike of the stakes and the characters or if there was just something else about the writing and the worldbuilding that made it feel that way.
I did receive a copy in exchange for a book tour. The review is my own and separate from the tour.
I read Firebreak when I was approved for this copy. I thought firebreak was just okay. It set up an interesting world, and interesting online MMO situation, some cool characters, some sketchy super soldier practices, and awful capitalist companies. I thought the pacing was off and there were some finer details of the worldbuilding that didn't make full sense, but it was alright.
However, this book, which serves as a prequel for the operatives 06 and 22 when they were 12 years old, is not great. I understand that due to it being a prequel, we know what happens to this character, but the characters don't and are living in their situation, but I do find it frustrating when authors make stakes and pretend to follow along with them when we know that the stakes aren't real because we know how things end in the main book. We have 06 and 22 running away and trying to live life on their own. It's like a bad survival novel. Instead of making it a cool new world exploration type thing, relishing in the freedom of everything, they're laying low for vague reasons and grocery shopping and putting bags over their shoes. And then we have one of them getting sick and convinced that they're dying, but we know they're alive in Firebreak so there's no stakes.
And they don't read like 12 year olds. I get that they've been super soldiered up so I figured that my own inability to picture them as children was due to my own failure to suspend disbelief. But then in the author's note she talks about how she tried to write them when they were younger, before they lost all their memories of their lives before, so now I'm pretty certain that they were just written as mini adults.
All of these qualms are definitely me-problems, so it's also hard for me to understand if the fact this book felt a million pages long was part of my own dislike of the stakes and the characters or if there was just something else about the writing and the worldbuilding that made it feel that way.
October 14, 2025
Reasons to read the Acknowledgments at the end of the book: you find out that the brilliant book you just read is a prequel written some years after two other instalments.
Cue happy dancing.
In some medium-term future, America has gone entirely corporate, and there's wars between the main ones (I mean...). This is, however, not the focus of this story at all (but possibly is of the main novel, Firebreak?). Instead, the focus is on 06 and 22 - two children who are no longer children in many ways, but still have some child-like aspects. They have been changed by a corporation, and I don't really want to go into exactly how or why because discovering that was part of the absolute joy in reading this book. It's not exactly pleasant, so maybe don't read it if you're feeling particularly attuned to nasty things happening to kids, but there's not a lot of terrible detail, so there's that.
The story is basically split in two. The main bits are focused on 06 and 22 - biologically 12, kept in a secret facility for four years - having broken out and now trying to find food and survive in what is basically a foreign environment. There's an intense focus on the relationship between the two (don't be gross, not like that), which is clearly a huge aspect of the later books but still works without knowing anything of their futures. It's beautiful and sometimes funny and also quite affecting.
The other, smaller part of the story is the experience of the Director, as she tries to figure out how to get the pair back. For someone who is quite clearly reprehensible, Kornher-Stace does a good job of both humanising her and never minimising how awful she is. It's an admirable presentation and again, makes me very keen to read more about her, even though I do now know some of what will happen to her in the future: Kornher-Stace is clearly writing this for people who've read the other stories, and yet the future-reflections actually still work for someone like me.
I enjoyed everything about this story and have every intention of going to find the rest.
Cue happy dancing.
In some medium-term future, America has gone entirely corporate, and there's wars between the main ones (I mean...). This is, however, not the focus of this story at all (but possibly is of the main novel, Firebreak?). Instead, the focus is on 06 and 22 - two children who are no longer children in many ways, but still have some child-like aspects. They have been changed by a corporation, and I don't really want to go into exactly how or why because discovering that was part of the absolute joy in reading this book. It's not exactly pleasant, so maybe don't read it if you're feeling particularly attuned to nasty things happening to kids, but there's not a lot of terrible detail, so there's that.
The story is basically split in two. The main bits are focused on 06 and 22 - biologically 12, kept in a secret facility for four years - having broken out and now trying to find food and survive in what is basically a foreign environment. There's an intense focus on the relationship between the two (don't be gross, not like that), which is clearly a huge aspect of the later books but still works without knowing anything of their futures. It's beautiful and sometimes funny and also quite affecting.
The other, smaller part of the story is the experience of the Director, as she tries to figure out how to get the pair back. For someone who is quite clearly reprehensible, Kornher-Stace does a good job of both humanising her and never minimising how awful she is. It's an admirable presentation and again, makes me very keen to read more about her, even though I do now know some of what will happen to her in the future: Kornher-Stace is clearly writing this for people who've read the other stories, and yet the future-reflections actually still work for someone like me.
I enjoyed everything about this story and have every intention of going to find the rest.
June 8, 2023
Flight & Anchor by Nicole Kornher-Stace is such a strange and fun novella. A lot of times with stories like these people want to put it somewhere before or after the novel it ties to, but with this one I’m not sure if I can! I read this one after Firebreak, and for that reason it really colored my reading one way, but thinking about it I genuinely wonder what someone’s reading might be like if they were to read it first then read Firebreak!
This story is about 06 & 22 who are children, kidnapped from the ruins of their homes and families who themselves were victims of a war between corporations that own swathes of America. The two children, along with many others are subjected to tests and modifications to create super soldiers for one of these corporations. 06 & 22 break out one evening and make a run for it.
In Firebreak we meet both of these characters as adults, and we get an idea of their personality but here we see the beginnings of that. How they were as kids, and I genuinely could see clearly how even in their young childhood they were already showing the signs of what they’d be like as adults. As I mentioned, reading Firebreak before this really colored my reading of Flight & Anchor but I still had a ton of fun despite the sad feelings. The new character addition of the AI nano-probe creature was delightful, and added a much needed note of humor to the story. The PoV chapters from the Director too were fascinating. The way she managed to put just a hint of relatability in that woman’s view really got to me. I despise that woman! But still… I smiled and got along with her sentiments at times.
I’d definitely recommend this for people who haven’t read Firebreak and for those who have. I think it’d be an interesting jumping in point, and for those who have read the full length novel it’d be a fantastic addition to 06 & 22’s stories. Evidently there are even more stories out there, and I’m excited to track those down and find out more!
4 out of 5 ‘mysteriously’ appearing pizzas
[Content Warnings:
Graphic: Confinement
Moderate: Medical content, Torture, and Medical trauma
Minor: War, Death of parent, and Death]
This story is about 06 & 22 who are children, kidnapped from the ruins of their homes and families who themselves were victims of a war between corporations that own swathes of America. The two children, along with many others are subjected to tests and modifications to create super soldiers for one of these corporations. 06 & 22 break out one evening and make a run for it.
In Firebreak we meet both of these characters as adults, and we get an idea of their personality but here we see the beginnings of that. How they were as kids, and I genuinely could see clearly how even in their young childhood they were already showing the signs of what they’d be like as adults. As I mentioned, reading Firebreak before this really colored my reading of Flight & Anchor but I still had a ton of fun despite the sad feelings. The new character addition of the AI nano-probe creature was delightful, and added a much needed note of humor to the story. The PoV chapters from the Director too were fascinating. The way she managed to put just a hint of relatability in that woman’s view really got to me. I despise that woman! But still… I smiled and got along with her sentiments at times.
I’d definitely recommend this for people who haven’t read Firebreak and for those who have. I think it’d be an interesting jumping in point, and for those who have read the full length novel it’d be a fantastic addition to 06 & 22’s stories. Evidently there are even more stories out there, and I’m excited to track those down and find out more!
4 out of 5 ‘mysteriously’ appearing pizzas
[Content Warnings:
Graphic: Confinement
Moderate: Medical content, Torture, and Medical trauma
Minor: War, Death of parent, and Death]
June 13, 2023
“If she is the blade that holds the blood in, then he is the wound that endures.”
Let's be clear - I loved Firebreak so much, I fell in love with the world when I read it 2 years ago - and when I heard that Nicole was writing more in the world I KNEW I was gonna eat it up - and I did.
This story is set years before Firebreak - when 06 & 22 are children, only 12 years old. They decide to run away from the Director and make a life for themselves. Tired of the missions and training and wondering about their past - they know there is a life out there. Call it childhood curiosity and wonder - but they want to see more.
The Director might be all powerful, but the one thing she can't control (yet) is the press - which means she can't send a team out to retrieve the children - she can't let anyone know they've escaped.
The result is an incredibly deep look at survival at all cost with how unequipped these kids are for the real world even though they're trained as weapons, and how little the director really knows about the human psyche. Moreover this book hones in on the friendship 06 &22 have, to truly be two halves of one person after surviving so much together.
Did this book add anything plot wise? no. It's a character development and world building story to the backstory of 06 & 22 that we briefly meet in Firebreak. While you can read this without reading Firebreak - I highly recommend reading it first to really appreciate this story.
cw// guns, calorie counting
Find me on: instagram | tiktok
Thank you to the publisher for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Let's be clear - I loved Firebreak so much, I fell in love with the world when I read it 2 years ago - and when I heard that Nicole was writing more in the world I KNEW I was gonna eat it up - and I did.
This story is set years before Firebreak - when 06 & 22 are children, only 12 years old. They decide to run away from the Director and make a life for themselves. Tired of the missions and training and wondering about their past - they know there is a life out there. Call it childhood curiosity and wonder - but they want to see more.
The Director might be all powerful, but the one thing she can't control (yet) is the press - which means she can't send a team out to retrieve the children - she can't let anyone know they've escaped.
The result is an incredibly deep look at survival at all cost with how unequipped these kids are for the real world even though they're trained as weapons, and how little the director really knows about the human psyche. Moreover this book hones in on the friendship 06 &22 have, to truly be two halves of one person after surviving so much together.
Did this book add anything plot wise? no. It's a character development and world building story to the backstory of 06 & 22 that we briefly meet in Firebreak. While you can read this without reading Firebreak - I highly recommend reading it first to really appreciate this story.
cw// guns, calorie counting
Find me on: instagram | tiktok
Thank you to the publisher for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
June 9, 2023
ver read a book you think is going to be something else? Flight & Anchor by Nicole Kornher-Stace is a long novella (short novel) that takes place in the Firebreak universe before the events of Firebreak. Two of the bio-tech, weaponized super-soldier escape and the Director tries to get them back. There are only four main characters. The two children (they're twelve), the Director and an old piece of nano-tech that is sentient. I expected a story closer to Firebreak, one of my favorite, surprising reads last year. But I was disappointed because that's not what this story is. It is a quick read but I wanted more action and to see the abilities of the super soldiers to fight back. There's little sense of the desperation of most of society from the previous book. I was also disappointed to see that the author wrote Firebreak as a standalone so that wonderful universe is lost to us. I really had a different expectation with this. If you haven’t read Firebreak, put it on the TBR. Thanks to @netgalley and Tachyon Publications for the advanced copy.
September 4, 2023
*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
Firebreak was one of my favorite books of 2021 so when I found out Nicole Kornher-Stace was writing a prequel novella following 6 and 22 I knew I had to read it, and I was not disappointed. This is a small novella detailing the time 6 and 22 ran away and I really enjoyed reading it. I am not typically a fan of dystopian books, but I love the world that Kornher-Stace has built here, and I absolutely adore the friendship between 6 and 22.
This book is marketed as a standalone, and I think it works well without having read Firebreak. I have read it, but my memories of specific details are hazy and I had no problem following along with the story here. Though there are small references to future events, specifically in how the Director thinks about the children, I don’t think it spoils Firebreak or hinders the enjoyment of Flight & Anchor. There is also an author’s note that explains connections in this novella to Kornher-Stace’s other books as well.
Firebreak was one of my favorite books of 2021 so when I found out Nicole Kornher-Stace was writing a prequel novella following 6 and 22 I knew I had to read it, and I was not disappointed. This is a small novella detailing the time 6 and 22 ran away and I really enjoyed reading it. I am not typically a fan of dystopian books, but I love the world that Kornher-Stace has built here, and I absolutely adore the friendship between 6 and 22.
This book is marketed as a standalone, and I think it works well without having read Firebreak. I have read it, but my memories of specific details are hazy and I had no problem following along with the story here. Though there are small references to future events, specifically in how the Director thinks about the children, I don’t think it spoils Firebreak or hinders the enjoyment of Flight & Anchor. There is also an author’s note that explains connections in this novella to Kornher-Stace’s other books as well.
March 27, 2023
Nicole Kornher-Stace is an author whose work I will always immediately devour - their deeply fascinating characters, absolutely gut-punching prose, and delightfully twisty plots are exactly what I look for and relish in fiction. Flight & Anchor is probably the best novella I've ever read, and certainly my favorite - and while it helps that I already love 06 and 22 (and SABRINA!!!) with my whole heart and soul, this story would be riveting and heartbreaking and immersive and satisfying regardless of my familiarity with this author's brilliantly interwoven universe of "standalones." I am so glad to have received an arc of this book, and I will promote their works effusively wherever I am given the opportunity to. If you love high-concept sci-fi rooted in the mundane, ride-or-die nonsibling friendships, snarky AIs, and unapologetically anticapitalist themes, this (and Nicole's entire body of work) is very very much for you.
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