Book Review: The Extractionist by Kimberly Unger

 

 

The Extractionist by Kimberly Unger

290 pages, Paperback

Published July 12, 2022 by Tachyon Publications

As a podcaster who does a whole show devoted to Philip K. Dick, I am interested each year in the book that wins the award with his name on it. Our first interview was with Carrie Vaughn on her underrated Bannerless novel when it won the award. The prize each year goes to a paperback original, and the idea is that most of Phil’s books debuted in paperback.  Unlike most winners, Kimberly Unger’s novel actually sounds Dickian in the nature of the plot, not just in format.

The concept of fake virtual worlds is a theme Phil wrote about, including the idea that someone could get stuck in one of these worlds. That is part of the nightmare in Phil’s masterpiece The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and of course, the short story that inspired Total Recall, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale just to name two. So, Unger’s modern take on the subject from Tachyon Publishing is a pretty solid bet for an award winner.

As I get started I want to say I enjoyed this book, I think it is good and worth the time of modern Science Fiction readers. If I seem hard on it, it would be the status as the PKD award winner.  

The history of virtual reality science fiction had its first mind-bending classic a decade before Cyberpunk became a thing with John Brunner’s Shockwave Rider.  The reality is that decades later it is easy for these types of stories to feel old hat, certainly 20 years after The Matrix was in theaters, we are at the point when that movie has already had a legacy sequel. This setup has a long history often the question I have with books in this genre is how do you separate your take on Cyberpunk and do something original.

“Excellent, but where is the body? I’m here to perform an extraction right?”Mckay asked. She had extracted people from some of the oddest setups, but so far there was always a body, somewhere, to write the persona back to.”

The title character Eliza McKay is an expert in Extraction, when powerful people get stuck in “The Swim” virtual worlds, they pay an agent/ mercenary to get them free. This requires skills in the real world and the swim. The action moves from Singapore to San Francisco and back again. Much of the action takes place in the Swim.  As you can see from the above quote she can free her client but back to his body…Where?

In her world that is unethical, he must be alive, or his mind would stop working but where? That sets off the mystery and espionage parts of the story.

One of the keys for a near future cyberpunk-ish novel like this is the world-building. I think some readers believe the dynamic has to be a plausible “few years from now” feeling, but I am a Dickian so I can live with surreal. I don’t understand the idea of wanting this type of Science fiction to feel grounded. Even Hard SF, when it sits on the shelf like say an Arthur C. Clarke novel will transform from grounded and realistic to surreal when the march of passes stories like 2001: A Space Odyssey. That novel has become an alternate reality novel that it was intended to be.  Build me a consistent world and I am good.

“Once settled on the Skybus, she sealed her sunglasses on and closed her eyes. The Overlay helpfully slid Brighton’s contract into her line of sight, hazard terms and rates picked up in red. She hadn’t taken on a project with questionable components for a while, the figures looked low compared with the feeling of panic she’d been trying to avoid for the past several hours.”

Tattoo sinks, the Skybus, and the sealed glasses give this world a different feeling from ours. That is well done natural bits of world-building that will rightfully swim right over most readers. As a Sci-fi writer and critic, I look for such things. The Overlay is the internal net access that appears in the vision of the person operating in the real world. Most of the world-building was well done.

There were several times that The Extractionist lost, me, and details went over my head. Unger is a techie, I am not so, and perhaps that is why I didn’t get everything. Honestly, it didn’t hurt my feelings toward the book. I don’t mind as long as I am getting most of it. The above quote also hints at something I felt was missed.

Why is Eliza taking these dangerous jobs? In a PKD novel, she would be broke, and have an ex-wife or business partner she owed money to. In world, a better explanation might be a loss of connection to the Swim if she didn’t do this one gig.   Those are noir clichés but they exist for a reason. You can’t do a haunted house novel without a logical reason to stay (for a totally different example) and I think I needed more of a reason for Eliza to HAVE to take this case.

So this gets back to the question of how you separate your story. That is important but the balance of hitting clichés in the right moments is like playing the power cord correctly as a rhythm guitar

She has a brother and that gives the character a little depth but I thought one part on page 87 gave Eliza a strange internal world depth. In the novel she is attacked, what they do to her body is almost an afterthought. They connect to her swim and the violation is brutal.

“The Overlay spun up in response to the unexpected input, leaping at the chance to reconnect with the headset, then recoiling as it made contact with the unexpected system. No. No. No. Never had McKay imagined something like this. The Overlay was firewalled and secured against all manner of virtual threats, but direct input was something else entirely. She felt a sick twisting in her gut. They can access everything.”

The terror and violation in this scene make clear that the importance of the virtual world, the shifting importance. The Tech overwhelms the lead character as it sometimes does the book. Like I said that never bothered me, less tech-savvy readers will likely not enjoy the experience.

Overall this a very good novel, it is entertaining. The most important judgment I can give you is that I intend to read more of Kimberly Unger.