In this efficient near-future thriller Eliza McKay, the "extractionist" of the title, gets something of a deal that she can't refuse in terms of dragging a persona out of a virtual reality world, under circumstances that are more than a little dodgy. I liked this book rather better than Unger's previous novel ("Nucleation") and I'd be happy to see a follow-up. One of the interesting things about this story is what's there and what's not, in a scenario that's basically late-21st century. You have effective virtual reality, effective quantum computing, and effective nano-tech, but Unger chooses not to dwell on things such as politics and climate change. That's fine in a stand-alone thriller but, going forward, Unger would be wise to engage in some more world building. ( )

2022 book #56. 2022. McCay is an extractionist, who specializes in pulling minds out of VR. Her latest client, the government, is eager to recover an agent before his persona degrades. McCay doesn't trust the gov but it's a good paycheck. I'd call this cyber-noir. Enjoyable read. ( )

Kimberly Unger writes tech adventure novels. Eliza McKay is a coder who has run afoul of the law and has had some of her privileges revoked. But she can still work as an Extractionist, a specialist who pulls people out of the net - the Swim - if they get stuck there. The technology of immersion is a bit unclear but it seems as if you jump into the Swim as an electronic copy of yourself, and when you are ready, you jump back out into your body. Except sometimes you don't. Mental trauma in the Swim means you don't fit back into your old mind and you get stuck. Extractionist pull you out. The easiest way is to prune off all of the new stuff ie memories and cram you back into your mind.

McKay is a very high level Extractionist who is called in on very special cases like this one to pull a client out but include the new memories and gently slot the altered mind back into the body.

This would not be so hard if there weren't some very sharp people who are interfering. The central questions are who is interfering, why, and what they want.

The book is fast moving and throws a lot of tech ideas at us that it's easier to just accept rather than try to figure out how things work. Like coding on the fly. If you read urban fantasy you accept spellcasting on the fly so why not go with this.

I think there are too many characters and too much going on, but I figure this is world building for the series.

I received a review copy of "The Extractionist" by Kimberly Unger from Tachyon Press through NetGalley.com. ( )