Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
Amherst, NY : Pyr, 2009.
Description
Boss loves to dive historical ships, derelict spacecraft found adrift in the blackness between the stars. Sometimes she salvages for money, but mostly she’s an active historian. She wants to know about the past—to experience it firsthand. Once she’s dived the ship, she’ll either leave it for others to find or file a claim so that she can bring tourists to dive it as well. It’s a good life for a tough loner, with more interest in artifacts than people. Then one day, Boss finds the claim of a lifetime: an enormous spacecraft, incredibly old, and apparently Earth-made. It’s impossible for something so old, built in the days before Faster Than Light travel, to have journeyed this far from Earth. It shouldn’t be here. It can’t be here. And yet, it is. Boss’s curiosity is up, and she’s determined to investigate. She hires a group of divers to explore the wreck with her, the best team she can assemble. But some secrets are best kept hidden, and the past won’t give up its treasures without exacting a price in blood.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member amf0001
I love the Retrieval Artist series but sadly this isn't half as good. I didn't engage with the characters very much (though she was ruthlessly killing them off) and didn't care for the situation much either. I think Rusch has an amazing capacity to create new and alien cultures, but it felt
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squandered here - the characters were all too familiar, and the situation, despite the unnerving Room of Lost Souls, was also too ordinary. A misfire. Show Less
LibraryThing member Shrike58
In which a woman with no name finds her avocation of exploring space wrecks and her childhood trauma of a near-lethal encounter with alien technology converging in a caper to prevent an enemy power from achieving true stealth technology, which means playing potentially lethal games with time/space
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itself. Very spare. Very taunt. Probably too spare; as Rusch alludes to a human galactic civilization that has collapsed at least once, but doesn't give it a lot of depth of description. I'm not sure this novel quite rises above its fix-up origins, but I'll read the follow-on books, as the mission of the "Boss" is by no means over at the end. It would make a good anime or manga series. Show Less
LibraryThing member Tyllwin
An interesting plot, and Rusch is very good here at a couple of items that many SF writers fail at: She manages to give us an approximation of rules for her tech without going into tedious detail, and there's always a sense that backstory is there, even when she doesn't detail it. It's just
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unfortunate that I didn't actually enjoy reading it more than I did. I put that down to two factors: first, a story told in first-person present tense just grates on me a bit, but more importantly, I just don't like the protagonist all that much, so I don't enjoy spending time with her. A worthy effort, but not a favorite. Show Less
LibraryThing member BryanThomasS
I've made some mistakes in my life, but not many I regret. One that I do is waiting so long to read a Kristine Kathryn Rusch novel. I've read many of her short stories and enjoyed them, but this book blew me away. I couldn't put it down. Read it over a weekend, basically. It hooks you from the
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start and won't let go. Great, well drawn characters, especially the lead. Just the right amount of world building. A good deal of mystery and surprise twists to the plotting. Believable science, space ships, and even action sequences. The book has it all. At its core it has a story about a person who was lost and is still figuring out how to come to terms with it. Boss needs closure and suddenly she finds a way which just might provide it. Her discovery of an ancient Earth war ship with long forgotten stealth technology opens a can of worms, bringing her back into contact with her long lost father, and others who desire that technology. Their possession of it could lead to a war, so Boss has to stop them. And the price paid to do so involves risking her own lives and those of others she cares about. A great read. I can't wait for the sequel to arrive in May! Show Less
LibraryThing member Patty_Jansen
This was pretty enjoyable space opera. Fast-moving, well-written, but still with good characterisation.
LibraryThing member capiam1234
Three separate novellas combined to form the force novel of this interesting space opera. I've enjoyed later novellas before reading this one and know that future installments are great. This one though introduces many crucial elements to the universe, but the plot leaves itself to be pretty easy
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to predict and doesn't lead to much suspense or intrigue as the others will. Show Less
LibraryThing member gregandlarry
Good story with interesting characters. It seemed a bit incredible.
LibraryThing member CBrachyrhynchos
This book has an engaging heroine with interesting flaws and good character development. However it's marred by clunky prose, by-the-numbers conflict development, and a fairly shallow treatment of the big ideas that are introduced.
LibraryThing member nnschiller
Good space opera. She combines scuba diving experiences w/ a good scifi setting to tell an interesting story.
LibraryThing member DLMorrese
A young woman explores wrecked spaceships, discovers ancient stealth technology, and decides the galaxy would be better off without it. It's not really all that bad a plot, but the story is, well, painfully juvenile. I don't mean that in the YA sense. Some YA is quite sophisticated and enjoyable,
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with intricate plots, great prose, and wonderful characters. This isn't, but then it's not really YA. It's ostensibly adult science fiction. It has spaceships, after all, but there is no subtle social commentary, no thought provoking insights about the future of humanity, no ideas about other worlds or alien civilizations, nor any interesting philosophical musings like you often find in great science fiction. What little real science there is, is superficial, and the narrative seems to convey either a poor understanding of science and scientists or a mistrust of them. (The protagonist, in any case, seems to hold this opinion.) The characters are one-dimensional. The prose is simplistic, although this may be intentional. The story is told in first person, present tense by the protagonist. The narrative makes it clear that she is emotionally scarred, narrowly educated, and far from brilliant. She has some redeeming qualities, but not enough to make her likable or very interesting. This may justify why the book often reads like a high school girl's journal, but it doesn't make for a great science fiction story. Show Less
LibraryThing member SChant
Rather ho-hum space-opera. Dangerous ancient tech, evil empire, flawed protagonist, implausible plot.
LibraryThing member kevn57
2 1/2 stars, I'll try the next book in the series sometime but this novel just didn't grab me.
LibraryThing member JudyGibson
This was not as good as it should have been, given the author. It's written in three major parts, each practically stand-alone. My impression is that the focus was heavily on the mental states of the many characters, and the world-background was almost completely absent. Some action but it seemed
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mostly mechanical. I'm sorry, but I was disappointed. Show Less
LibraryThing member lyrrael
I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book when I dove into it (forgive the pun). It turned out that it grew on me. The first part of the book definitely feels like a completely different story from the second, and it even had inklings of space horror -- something which I appreciate and find
An interesting kind of touristy shipwreck exploration, history and amateurish archaeology, led by someone who is cautious to a fault, occasionally fearful, nonviolent, frustrating and who tries to be a good, safety conscious manager, but who occasionally gets caught up in her own desires. Someone who is, in other words, human. I appreciated how down-to-earth the whole thing was.
Cool. Worth the read.
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too little of. That it was an explainable phenomenon disappointed me a little, but I still enjoyed the twists and turns the book took.An interesting kind of touristy shipwreck exploration, history and amateurish archaeology, led by someone who is cautious to a fault, occasionally fearful, nonviolent, frustrating and who tries to be a good, safety conscious manager, but who occasionally gets caught up in her own desires. Someone who is, in other words, human. I appreciated how down-to-earth the whole thing was.
Cool. Worth the read.
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LibraryThing member zot79
I thought I would like this more than I did. The story premise is pretty fun - diving shipwrecks in space, including a lot of world building that seems rightly borrowed from scuba diving here on Earth. The characters are also likable enough and fairly well-drawn, from the cynical Boss down through
On the downside, the storytelling is a little too simple and straightforward. The relationships and setups are easy to anticipate. The 'science' in this fiction is completely made of handwavium (I would have even preferred some pseudo-techno-blather a la Star Trek). The politics, which are the backbone of what passes for suspense, is about as deep as what George Lucas provides in Star Wars. Meh.
Still, there were some surprises and some pleasures. The descriptions of ships, space stations, diving tech and future life are well done. I may still read the additional stories in this series to see if things get more interesting.
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her motley team of co-divers.On the downside, the storytelling is a little too simple and straightforward. The relationships and setups are easy to anticipate. The 'science' in this fiction is completely made of handwavium (I would have even preferred some pseudo-techno-blather a la Star Trek). The politics, which are the backbone of what passes for suspense, is about as deep as what George Lucas provides in Star Wars. Meh.
Still, there were some surprises and some pleasures. The descriptions of ships, space stations, diving tech and future life are well done. I may still read the additional stories in this series to see if things get more interesting.
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Awards
Premio UPC (Winner — 2005)
Language
Original publication date
2009
Physical description
269 p.; 23 cm
ISBN
9781591027867
Local notes
Diving Universe, 1
DDC/MDS
| Fic SF Rusch |
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