Synopsis
In New Avarita, every person is born with a purpose. Once fulfilled, they are eligible for Ascent, a peaceful passing and assumed rebirth on the next plane of existence, celebrated for having left their perfect mark upon the world.
At least, that’s what the powers that be want them to believe.
When Liv Spencer’s husband reaches Ascent under more than suspicious circumstances, she doesn’t feel like celebrating—she wants revenge. Her path takes her deep into the neon-drenched streets of New Avarita’s seedy underbelly, a world filled with black-market cybernetics, synthetic drugs, and people who see Ascent for what it truly a killswitch.
Liv is soon embroiled in an anarchist plot to overthrow the ruling body of New Avarita, but the further she sinks into this world, the blurrier the line between “righteous rebellion” and “terrorism” begins to grow. With hundreds of thousands of innocent lives on the line, Liv must find a way to strike back against the fascist rule of the shadowy figures controlling New Avarita without getting flagged for Ascent herself.
Review
This is a short, snappy story that punches way above its weight class.
Killswitch Protocol drops you into New Avarita, a neon-drenched cyberpunk dome city where every person is born with a purpose and, once that purpose is fulfilled, becomes eligible for Ascent. A peaceful passing. A celebration. At least, that’s what you’re supposed to believe. When Liv Spencer’s husband reaches Ascent under more than suspicious circumstances, she doesn’t celebrate. She wants revenge. And from that moment, the book has you.
The inciting incident is sudden and brutal, and I absolutely loved it. It sets the tone for everything that follows. This is a story that delivers emotional gut punches with the kind of weight and satisfaction you’d expect from a five-book series, compressed into a fraction of the space. Kuhn wastes nothing. Every beat matters, every moment lands.
The characters are colorful across the board, but Emerson is easily the standout. The whole cast benefits from something Kuhn does exceptionally well: their transformations feel logical. You can trace the path each character walks from who they are at the beginning to who they become by the end, and every step along the way makes sense. These feel like real people going through real stages of loss, anger, and radicalization. You could imagine something like this happening in the real world, maybe not in this exact medium, but the emotional truth of it is undeniable.
The worldbuilding is delivered at expert levels of pacing. You know exactly what kind of story you’re in for from the moment you open the book, and it delivers immediately. The high-technology, low-quality-of-life landscape of New Avarita comes into focus quickly without ever overwhelming you. It’s a great cyberpunk introduction, efficient and vivid.
The prose is serviceable with a healthy amount of banter and sarcasm between characters that keeps things moving. Lines like “Life after 30 really is a bitch” land with just the right mix of humor and bite. The dialogue never tries to be more than it needs to be, and that restraint serves the story well.
What makes Killswitch Protocol special is its blend of a fantastical cyberpunk world with characters dealing with grounded, deeply human problems. The line between righteous rebellion and terrorism blurs in ways that feel honest and uncomfortable, and Kuhn doesn’t let anyone off easy. It’s smart, it’s fast, and it’s emotionally devastating in all the right ways.
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