The Extractionist
(eBook)

In her breakout technothriller, virtual reality expert Kimberly Unger has created the iconic, badass, cyberpunk heroine that you desperately need: Eliza McKay. McKay is disgraced underground hacker who is just trying to take back her career one dangerous job at a time. But when her latest contract throws her into the middle of a corporate power struggle, she finds herself fighting for her life in both the real and digital worlds. Eliza McKay is an Extractionist: an expert in the virtual reality space where people's minds are uploaded as digital personas. When rich or important people get stuck in the Swim for reasons that are sleazy, illegal, or merely unlucky-it's McKay's job to quietly extract them. And McKay's job just got a lot more dangerous. After McKay repels an attack on her Swim persona, hired thugs break into her house to try to hack her cybernetic implants directly. Meanwhile, the corporate executive she was hired to rescue from VR space is surprisingly reluctant to be extracted. Something is lurking in the Swim, and some very powerful people will stop at nothing to keep it secret. This job might be the big break McKay has been waiting for-if she can survive long enough to beat the hackers at their own game. In The Extractionist, virtual reality and gaming expert Unger has created an unforgettable cyberplayground where the rich still make their own rules, but a skilled operator remains the wildcard. Kimberly Unger is the accliamed author of the virtual reality science-fiction thriller Nucleation. Unger made her first videogame back when the 80-column card was the new hot thing, and followed that up with degrees in English/Writing from UC Davis and Illustration from the Art Center College of Design. Nowadays she produces virtual reality narrative-games, lectures on the intersection of art and code for UCSC's master's program, and writes science fiction about how all these app-driven superpowers are going to change the human race. (Tl;dr - Unger writes about fast robots, big explosions, and space things.) Kimberly Unger lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she works in the future of VR on the Oculus platform. Praise for Nucleation 2020 Washington Post Gift Guide selection 2020 UK Guardian Gift Guide selection 2020 Den of Geek Top Sci-Fi Books "Science fiction fans will be captivated by Unger's smart, plausible vision of the future of space travel, especially the elegant solution of utilizing quantum entanglement to communicate across light years." -Publishers Weekly "This smart, gripping debut weaves technology, embodiment, and corporate espionage into a tense vision of the future that readers won't be able to put down." -Jacqueline Koyanagi, author of Ascension "[Nucleation is a] debut[s] worth checking out . . . show[s] that new voices continue to expand the genre" -Washington Post "A superb, smart debut. . . . I can't wait to read more from Unger, a welcome new voice in science fiction." -Lissa Price, internationally bestselling author of the Starters series "Dialog among rivals, teammates, and machine interfaces keeps the story moving quickly. Recommended for fans of technothrillers and those who appreciate a strong lead character. -Library Journal "In technology we so often look to science fiction for inspiration. Kimberly Unger is the rare author with a foot in both worlds and it shows as she gives a thrilling glimpse into the future with Nucleation." -Andrew Bosworth, Vice President of Augmented and Virtual Reality, Facebook "If Grisham was a better wordsmith and chose to write hard sf thrillers, it would look a lot like Kimberly Unger's gripping Nucleation. -Charles Gannon, author of the Caine Riordan series. "Nucleation delivers top-notch suspense, deftly weaving together industrial espionage and first contact in a futuristic world that is all too plausible." -Juliette Wade, author of Mazes