Kathy Tyers is known for her award-winning Firebird series and two licensed Star Wars “Legends” novels, including New York Times bestseller The Truce at Bakura. Her messiah-in-space novel, Daystar, which concluded the original Firebird series, won a 2013 Carol Award, and in 2019, Shivering World received the Christy Award in the visionary category. At home in southwest Montana with her husband, William T. Gillin, Kathy focuses on writing, music, and short-season vegetable gardening.
FF: What inspired the story in Firebreak?
I wondered what further adventures might challenge my galactic power couple after the original trilogy—Firebird, Fusion Fire, and Crown of Fire. They have powerful enemies, and they couldn’t just settle down to live happily ever after. This is a genuinely new trilogy and can be read without having read the original series.
FF: What can you tell us about the main characters?
Lady Firebird combines loyalty and pride with death-disdaining courage. Brennen Caldwell, the man she marries, carries his unusual telepathic abilities and his military authority with honor and faith.
Firebird was a feisty extraneous heiress, trained in music but also as a fighter pilot. Brennen is a telepath and more, the oldest heir of a family prophesied to produce the messiah, who—in this version of human history—has not yet been born. One of their twin sons might fulfill a prophecy so ancient that it predates humanity’s exodus into outer space.
As this trilogy begins, they are settling in on a regional capital world. Brennen has been promoted to Federate Regional Command, and Firebird is trying to establish a musical exchange program among Federate worlds.
Naturally, that isn’t what happens.
FF: Which character surprised you the most?
Firebird and Brennen’s ally back on her homeworld, Prince Tel, has always been a fan favorite. He ends up playing a delightfully major role in Firebreak.
FF: Why do you think storytelling is such a powerful way to share truth?
Seeing truth when it’s applied to fictional characters—whether the positive truths of courage and honor or the negative realities of deceit and betrayal, and watching the consequences play out in a well-told story—creates a memory that we can draw upon when we meet similar challenges. We can see ourselves, and the people around us, more clearly when we’ve seen our traits in the actions (and consequences) of these fictional characters.
FF: What can readers expect from the rest of the series?
Brennen’s people, the faithful Sentinel kindred, share their genetically altered lineage with a people group who also have telepathic powers but obey no moral code. Those Shuhr are determined to rule this part of the galaxy. Brennen and Firebird are increasingly drawn into that battle.
FF: What kind of research did you do for this book?
Writing science fiction means subcreating fictional worlds complete with history, flora and fauna, technology, and often their approach to religion. Trying to remember details that I invented for this story world forty years ago was a challenge! I re-read my original trilogy and both next-generation sequels, searched files that are still on my computer, dog-eared pages, planted sticky notes, and studied the looseleaf notebook I created back in the 1980s.
FF: What do you want readers to take away after reading your book?
A sense of refreshment, perhaps a bit of wistful regret, and a hope that under whatever pressures God allows, we might meet them with courage.
FF: What are the biggest challenges for you as a science fiction author?
My first science fiction novels were published by Bantam Books of New York, and I wrote two Lucasfilm-licensed Star Wars “Legends” novels. When I decided to cross over from secular publishing and work in the Christian marketplace, many Christian publishers eyed speculative fiction with suspicion. Fortunately, Steve Laube was an acquisition editor at Bethany House at the very moment when I wished to make the crossover, and he had read my work. We connected at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference. We have worked together ever since, now at Enclave Publishing.
FF: What authors or books have inspired you as an author?
The first science fiction I read as a fifth grader was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. The Star Conquerors by Ben Bova followed. Shortly thereafter, I discovered J.R.R. Tolkien. Since then, the list has included Zenna Henderson, C.S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, Lois McMaster Bujold, Tosca Lee, Orson Scott Card, Timothy Zahn, and many others.
FF: How has your faith or world view impacted the way you tell stories?
My faith and world view are soul-deep. The stories bubbling out of my heart and mind’s deep places arise from those springs. Decades ago, I read a C.S. Lewis statement—and I wish I could quote it verbatim and cite the source, but memory fails me—stating that who and what we are will come out in our writing, whether or not we consciously try to put it there.
