Flight & Anchor

April 3, 2023
Two young operatives escape corporate imprisonment in Kornher-Stace’s captivating cyberpunk prequel to Firebreak. The unnamed Director of Stellaxis Innovations has been creating synthetic children with supernatural combat abilities. Her prized weapons, known only as 06 and 22, are “pair-bonded superpowered preteen killing machines” who manage to secretly break free from her grasp and escape headquarters. After being kidnapped, experimented on, and forced to fight, 06 and 22 want only to live a simple, honest life away from the bloodshed. But with the Director at their heels, desperate to get her intellectual property back before anyone at Headquarters notices the tweens are missing, this proves to be a near-impossible task. The Director will stop at nothing to lure them back, even if it means bringing 06 and 22 to the brink of death to remind them how good they have it back at the facility. The postapocalyptic worldbuilding and small cast won’t be inaccessible to new readers, but those already familiar with Firebreak will get the most out of this glimpse into its leads’ early lives. It’s a fast-paced game of cat and mouse that will leave readers wanting more.

May 1, 2023
Set several years before Firebreak (2021), Kohrher-Stace's newest Firebreak tale follows operatives 06 and 22 as 12-year-olds who have escaped from the Stellaxis headquarters, where they have lived and trained since they were orphaned 4 years earlier in the corporate civil war. Besides discovering that they are woefully unprepared for living on their own as they hide in an abandoned shipping container mere blocks from their home, they also learn of the operatives' merchandise generated by Stellaxis' marketing department. Not only are their own statistics blatantly exaggerated, they are also described as artificial humans made to be perfect weapons, which is outrageous given their vague memories of childhood before being ""rescued"" by Stellaxis. Relying on dumpster diving, selling recycled cans, and some charity, they struggle to feed themselves while the Director, hiding their escape from the company to protect her job, sabotages their lives with nanobots. This distressing yet delightful prequel explains the history between 06 and 22, cementing the reasoning behind their actions in Firebreak and expanding readers' understanding of the dystopian, corporate-owned world Kornher-Stace has created.

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May 1, 2023

In the future, the U.S. has been replaced by two corporations, one of which is Stellaxis, which kidnaps and makes children into supersoldiers. This prequel to Firebreak presents a compelling, heartbreaking origin story for 06 and 22, two of the orphaned, brainwashed, child-soldier superheroes whose plight became the cause c�l�bre that finally opened a chink in Stellaxis's carefully constructed, spin-doctored armor. The always rebellious 06 and her stalwart follower 22 run away from their corporate overseers and attempt to blend into the population. It's a dream that is doomed to fail, but the children are too young to realize it and too selfless to leave each other behind--to a terrible cost, now and in the years to come. Readers who loved Firebreak are going to fall hard for this story, as it adds layers to the buckets of heartbreak, and tears to the already poignant ending of their saga. VERDICT A terrific entry point into this compelling, corrupt, dystopian world, with a story about the forging of unbreakable bonds set against harrowing adventure, heartrending choices, and traumatic consequences.--Marlene Harris

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