#nicole kornher-stace

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2023. FLIGHT & ANCHOR by Nicole Kornher-Stace.

Sooo I have a Murderbot hangover (shocking No One), and when that sort of thing happens, I try to thread my way out with book worlds that are Close But Different. This one is short, and very corporate hellscape, and also escaped modified supersoldiers, so I'm hoping it's a nice transition!

[aroaessidhe]

nicole kornher-stace posted a snippet of a new project on patreon that's like..... sci-fi dragon riders (but the handlers not the riders) and i am INTRIGUED

[layaart]

06 & 22 barbie meme to celebrate Flight & Anchor coming out tomorrow! 

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[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

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[rhetoricandlogic]

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed: Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Firebreak

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed: Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Firebreak

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed: Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Firebreak

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed: Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Firebreak

The Revolution Will Be Livestreamed: Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Firebreak

Molly Templeton

Wed May 19, 2021 2:00pm

If you’ve not yet read Nicole Kornher-Stace’s novels Archivist Wasp and Latchkey, I’d like to strongly encourage you to do so. It’s not because they’re connected to Firebreak—to my surprise and delight, they are, though Firebreak is a standalone—but because they’re just so good. Immersive, dark, vivid, imaginative and eerie, they follow one young woman in a post-apocalyptic world where her task is two-pronged: survive, and catch ghosts.

Firebreak is set in a world not yet turned totally apocalyptic—but close. In 2134, two corporations run what used to be the U.S. Stellaxis and Greenleaf are in perpetual conflict, and citizens are regularly caught in the middle, leaving shattered cities and families. Mallory is one of those orphaned by the war. She lives in a hotel room with a handful of other orphans, all scraping together an existence from odd jobs and whatnot, counting the gallons of water they’re allotted each week.

Mal’s world is a bleak magic-mirror version of ours, an all-too-believable extrapolation from the climate, political and otherwise, we live in. But we don’t have SecOps, the immersive game in which Mal spends much of her free time. Players in the expansive digital world stream their gameplay, earning fans and sponsors and gifts from those who watch. If they’re really lucky, they might stumble across one of the game’s celebrity NPCs, the digital counterparts of real-life soldiers who are known, in life and in the game, only by numbers. In the real world, the numbered soldiers fight for Stellaxis—and serve as the face of the war’s marketing. In the game, finding an NPC can be a ticket to more viewers, more in-game gifts, more attention. More water, too.

Mal and her friend Jessa are low-level players and streamers. Jessa’s the chipper, outgoing one who talks with their viewers; Mal is less social, more focused on her game and on getting a glimpse of 22, the NPC who intrigues her. There’s nothing really special about Mal or Jessa, except that they happen to be the people who stumble on NPC 08, out in the middle of nowhere in game-space. And that action gets someone’s attention.

Firebreak is part mystery, part gamer-geek-out, part scream of rage at corporate culture and capitalist greed. Mal knows her world is a mess, but she’s never seen any hope of it changing—let alone hoped that she could change it. She’s deeply aware of how the lives of her roommates are marked by grief and trauma, that all of their families were destroyed by the powers that rule her world. And when she has a chance to act, to help people, she’s believably torn between fear and the certainty that the scary thing is the right thing to do.

I’m being specifically vague on plot here because part of the delight of reading Firebreak is unraveling secrets along with Mal, whose oh-shit-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into-now narration is immersive, endearing, and wry and, as things go ever further sideways, increasingly intense in a way that’s perfectly matched to the book’s video-game aspect. The intensity of the plot is carefully balanced by the strength and depth of the friendships among Kornher-Stace’s characters. “I’m committed to putting as many books as I can out into the world that treat platonic relationships with all the weight and gravity and significance usually reserved for romance,” Kornher-Stace explained on Goodreads. She’s not just committed to these relationships; she’s really, really good at them. Mal and Jessa play off each other’s strengths, find ways to keep each other going, and from the get-go their friendship feels lived-in and fleshed-out, familiar and true. The relationships with their roommates are less detailed, but we get a glimpse of each of them, an outline of personality and perspective that’s enough to convince me that Kornher-Stace could write another novel about each one.

But Mal’s interest in, and eventual connection with, 22 is something rarely seen: the friend-crush. The NPCs are celebrities, with merch of their faces, figurines, posters, you name it. They’re everywhere; they seem less people and more action figures. Mal’s attraction to 22 doesn’t involve the usual trappings, but is something deeper and harder to parse—and something that rings true and familiar. Haven’t many of us had that person we just want to be near, to get to know, but not in the way everyone else thinks? Or been attracted to a person in a way that you feel like ought to be romantic, but isn’t? That’s what Kornher-Stace puts on the page: a connection that rarely gets depicted, let alone as effectively as this.

Firebreak has been compared to Ready Player One, and if you have any kind of reaction to that, I understand. So did I. Both books involve an immersive, addictive video game that takes the place of a lot of “real life” for people in a broken future. But you will find no ‘80s references, no quests, no glib nostalgia here. The game feeds the plot, and it plays an important role in Mal and Jessa’s lives. But change needs to come to the real world, the world full of hungry, thirsty bodies at the mercy of corporate greed. What happens in the game matters, but on an entirely different level.

It’s difficult to talk about Firebreak without talking about how it connects to Archivist Wasp, though as I said before: This is a standalone novel, and you absolutely don’t have to have read Kornher-Stace’s other books to get completely sucked into it. That said, there’s a real reward here for those who have met Wasp and her world. The books work in tandem to tell a story about how systems of oppression and abuse replicate themselves, how the horrors faced by one generation may be the same thing later generations face, in different shapes and with different names. All three novels prioritize vivid,  platonic relationships, often between characters in exceedingly fraught situations—people fighting against forces that don’t really see them as people, and trying to retain their humanity in the face of incredible brutality.

Kornher-Stace sends her characters to underworlds, erases their realities, isn’t afraid to make death stark on the page, and knows how to show us horrible abuses without ever edging into gratuitousness or melodrama. Her heroine’s only superpowers are curiosity, stubbornness, and care—things we’re all capable of mustering up. This world feels real; this world is real, and not that far away. Firebreak reads like a warning, but one that’s simultaneously a gripping, affecting tale full of characters I hope we’ll get to meet again.

[anarchohobbitist]

i have extreme archivist wasp et al brain rot right now how am i to continue reading other books at this point???

[nycorix]

How do you pronounce Nycorix? I've been pronouncing it like nigh-COR-ix, but I want to get it right if I'm going to keep infodumping about my favorite books to anyone who'll listen.

Yeah no that's the correct way!! I'm a weirdo lmao and I was saying it "NIHcorix" to rhyme with nyx sjdjfkg. But the way it's pronounced in the audiobook is right 🥲

[scififr]

Flight & Anchor, par Nicole Kornher-Stace (Gallery/Saga press, juin 2023)

Un spin-off de « Firebreak », qui raconte la fugue de deux seconds rôles de ce roman, 06 et 22, lorsqu’ils avaient une douzaine d’années.

Un texte court et dense qui se déguste nécessairement après avoir lu le roman initial et qui éclaire celui-ci.

[reviewsthatburn]

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

FLIGHT & ANCHOR takes place before the events of FIREBREAK when the operatives are still kids. It is best appreciated after reading FIREBREAK at the very least, as several plot-important events are referenced without quite spoiling them. I was a huge fan of the Boxcar Children series when I was a kid, collecting them for years, owning several dozen by the time I was old enough that I moved on to other stories. FLIGHT & ANCHOR is wonderfully and unabashedly 06 and 22 with their own attempt at being the Boxcar Children. The world of FIREBREAK with its resources controlled by two money-hungry and uncaring corporations literally at war with each other is a very different environment than the setting of that older series, and so this plays out in its own way. If you've never read those books, the salient point is that 06 and 22 run away from a really bad situation, scavenge to try and survive, and end up hiding out in an abandoned boxcar. It's winter, and their initial optimism about their ability to feed themselves turns into dismay at how little money they're able to find and just how much everything costs. They're resourceful, modified to be survivalists and killers, but their conditioning isn't yet complete and sometimes they can remember faint traces of their lives before they were kidnapped by the corporation. The Director is keeping an eye on them, trying to handle this massive screw up without anyone knowing that she's made a mistake. 

Full Review at Link

[aroaessidhe]

Hi!

I just read archivist wasp and loved it! but apparently there are a bunch of other books in the same universe and I was wondering what reading order you'd recommend :)

Also I love your blog and art!

-E

very comedic timing, I literally just started a reread yesterday lmao. Also, thank you!

OK so the main things are three books + a novella + a vaguely connected middle grade, and some extra stuff online (which I'll get to after these). Here’s publishing order for the books, which is a good reading order:

Archivist Wasp

Latchkey - book 2 in the (unfinished) wasp trilogy, following her & the Upstarts & our ghosts (and more about their backstory)

Firebreak is a standalone narratively, but has some significant connections. It’s set in a dystopian city before the apocalypse that happened long before Wasp’s time.

Jillian Vs Parasite Planet is a middle grade space adventure set before Firebreak (the closest to recognisably our present), and is the least connected to everything else (tonally and literally)- but it has a character/piece of technology that is significant in:

Flight & Anchor, a novella prequel to Firebreak (you would understand this if you read it before JvPP & maybe F, but would miss small details/references)

I would consider Archivist Wasp > Latchkey > Firebreak, or Archivist Wasp > Firebreak > Latchkey, then everything else more or less in whichever order you want?

I haven't tried reading Firebreak inbetween (until right now - I was just gonna read AW&L but decided to slip it in there too after I saw this ask lol, just started Firebreak) so I can't vouch for whether it'd be more rewarding to read F or L first, but I like the idea of that. If Firebreak is more accessible to you (likely, as it's better distributed) then I think go for it.

---

The short fiction which is all online, mostly came out just before or after Firebreak, and will make sense if you’ve read at least Archivist Wasp & Firebreak!

Pathfinding - short story about our supersoldiers (free)

Last Chance - set in a different town a little before Archivist Wasp, following a side character in AW/L (free)

Archivist Wasp Myths: Ember Girl at the Crossroads , The Story of the Harvesting-Knife and How It Came to Us Out of the Before-Time Into Now, Catchkeep's Favourite Children, Carrion Boy and the Crow, The Story of Why Catchkeep and the Chooser Hate Each Other In the First Place, Ember Girl & Carrion Boy Fight the Metal Men - essentially the full versions of some of the mythological stories in Archivist Wasp. You’d get the most out of these reading them after the main 3 books. (all on patreon)

FAQ - this is like. a separate short story that you could argue is set in the Firebreak era lol (patreon)

Catchkeep - this is the draft version of the third book in the Archivist Wasp trilogy, currently being posted on patreon, though it’s only a few chapters in and it’s been radio silence for a while. (When (🤞) this is finished I guess I’d say you could choose to read the trilogy first then everything else)

and also:

Archivist Wasp deleted scenes and commentary (patreon)

Latchkey deleted scenes and commentary (patreon)

unpublished short story that inspired AW (patreon)

This post outlining connections between the first 4 books and some of the short stories (free)

the patreon is just $1 for access to everything! There's a couple other unrelated stories there too. Hope this makes sense!!!

[layaart]

ARCHIVIST WASP FIREBREAK CHARACTER DESIGNS part 6

mal & jessa, & their game avatars!

mal’s not super described, other than black clothes. same with jessa: other than a jacket covered in pins and patches, and fandom shirts.

I decided to go full neonpastel, which I feel like suits her personality, and is a contrast to mal. (I did make the shirt and shoes black though, because it was looking Too bright considering the tone of the book and also like, they're not exactly rich, mismatched clothes is gonna be a given.

for the game avatars: i know it’s like, more of a hyperrealistic military game but a) i’m already drawing in a cartoon style and b) it’s just more fun to make them cartoony fortnite vibes (note: I barely know any games). so giving them that kind of everyone’s-the-same-height-(tall) body shape

nycorix is basically as described, clothes-wise, (in hindsight, I think she probs has a tie? forgot that lol) & she’s holding the battery or whatever it is they get. (dee mentioned this is like a ghost jar........I’m gonna pretend that was intentional)

queenoftheraids: only thing that’s mentioned is two blasters (which I would have drawn bigger if the right hand one wouldn’t obscure so much), otherwise just upped the neon sporty vibes!

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[hedge-bones]

whoo, I finished reading my second* book of the year! Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace, it was really good! A really unique post-apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy (it's really a solid blend of the two), I absolutely loved the worldbuilding. I'll definitely have to buy the sequel and read it, I think I'm going to move onto another book I already have but once I get a copy I'll read it.

I've had it for years (possibly since it was published actually...), but between moving houses, going to college, two different apartments, things getting boxed and unboxed and put into new boxes none of which were properly labeled... I honestly thought it got donated until it turned up in a box of books my parents brought me that had still been in a closet. For some reason playing Sable really put me in the mindset to read it and I'm glad I didn't have to find another copy haha

*(or possibly first, I started the first book the last week of December but I read less than half of it before the new year, so I'm counting it towards 2024 lol)

[iztopher]

firebreak spoilers under the cut

he died with his head on her shoulder like he'd fallen asleep on the bus. i don't know how i'm ever supposed to be normal again after that

and in the context of firebreak it's gut-wrenching, but in the context of archivist wasp/latchkey 22's death reads like a warm hug. i'd been thinking he'd died alone after losing the only person he really trusted. but he died with his side pressed against someone who thought she loved him before she even knew him, who did love him in the little time she got to know him, who gave everything she had to help him.

and it wasn't enough. it never could have been enough to do anything but borrow more time. and that's the tragedy, right? but it was something. it was more than i'd assumed he'd gotten. it was more than he expected to get. it was something he thanked her for.

and then in archivist wasp/latchkey, he's lost that. he doesn't remember his death. he doesn't remember mal. and all over again it's back to gut-wrenching and i'm literally nauseous over these characters in the best way possible