A new arrow for a new target, Flight & Anchor shares only the setting of Firebreak. The new target of an entirely different color and in an entirely different direction, the novel puts readers in the shoes of two child soldiers, 06 and 22, after they escape from the facility where they were forced to train as super-soldiers. Alone in a big urban world, the pair struggle to survive on the cold streets while the Director of the facility attempts to track them down and bring them back—dead or alive to be determined.
The new target results in a new spirit. Where Firebreak felt like action-packed anime, Flight & Anchor is a character piece. Gundam action and spicy dialogue practically non-existent, the reader now follows the plight of two brainwashed, homeless children eking out a trash-can existence. If Firebreak was an online MOBA arena, then Flight & Anchor is urban survival realism. The shortcut here is: readers who wanted more Firebreak should temper their expectations.
Regardless the comparisons to Firebreak, Flight & Anchor has some serious challenges for the reader to overcome. First is length. It is a novelette—at best a novella—pumped up to fit the body of a novel. Granted it's a short novel (192 pages), content is nevertheless streeeeeeeetched to reach that page count. The pages and paragraphs do little to present or develop the characters (hence character piece, not character study). This is important because, judging by the title the book would have wanted to examine the idea of freedom, specifically the juxtaposition of a stable life in oppressive conditions versus a highly uncertain life in freedom. (Which would you choose?) But there isn't enough content, e.g. character nuance, stream-of-consciousness, or outright exposition to develop this tension within the characters. What readers instead get are largely the details of their dumpster digging. The book tip-toes toward developing the theme but doesn't walk the thematic mile—a thirty-minute episode stuck in a two hour movie. If I were ultra-cynical, I would guess this is a novel that had to be written (to commission) rather than a book that wanted to be written (organic impetus). Regardless, the amount of insubstantial content has that filler feel.
Another challenge for readers to overcome is authorial voice. It's splotchy, it's occasionally angsty, and at times it is enjoyable. But it is not consistent, and more importantly doesn't have the focus necessary to carry a character piece. As it's written, it's difficult to sympathize with the escaped children, and it's difficult to take the villain seriously—two things that needed to happen for the story to have a chance at success, i.e. fulfill its theme. The reader understands that the children are robotic in nature due to their forced training. But this only means the onus is on the writer to inject humanity into the kids by subtler means. Another example of the inconsistency of tone are the random f-bombs, which Kornher-Stace drops them sporadically. They bring angry energy but in inorganic, out-of-place fashion—as if the author is taking over and not letting the story/characters tell their story. I'm far from a fucking prude, but the incompatibility is clear.
Inconsistency is such a key part of the novel it deserves going deeper. Check the following juxtapositions: the main characters (children and a cartoonish villain) vs audience (adults). The fantasy of the setting (kidnapped children converted into gundam mechs) vs. the desire for realism in the children (emotions, scenes, conclusion, etc.) To be clear, this latter juxtaposition can be bridged, it just isn't in Flight & Anchor. The strategic approach to the theme, I'm not sure it works.
In the end, Flight & Anchor is a very different novel than Firebreak. Where many authors look to extend story when revisiting a successful world, Kornher-Stace should be credited for attempting a new angle. Beyond this, there is not much going for the novel. By choosing a more “serious” outlay, Kornher-Stace doesn't play to her strengths, i.e. the playful, splashy authorial voice of Firebreak. Instead, this voice is partially wadded onto a story that needed more gravitas and human substance to generate empathy. Also, cutting fifty-percent of the story, or, rewriting the novel to align voice/content with theme would only have improved things. As it stands this was a real struggle for me. Likely not for everybody, however. If you find the idea interesting, check it out and form your own opinion.
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