The Extractionist
仮想空間から人を救い出すエクストラクショニストとして働く主人公が、企業の思惑と危険な依頼の渦に巻き込まれる。サイバーパンクの手触りと、俊敏な逃走劇の感覚がよく立った技術スリラー。
作品情報
仮想世界に閉じ込められた意識を回収する、その一件が思ったよりはるかに危険だった。
エリザ・マッケイは、記憶を保ったまま仮想空間から人を引き戻す仕事で生計を立てている。しかし、ひとつの依頼が企業間の権力争いに触れた瞬間、彼女は現実とデジタルの両方で追われる側になる。タフな主人公と、濃密な近未来の発想で押し切る一冊だ。
レビュー要約
-
VR描写の具体性とテンポのよさを評価する声が目立つ。反面、物語の仕掛けや技術描写が濃いため、好みによってはやや詰め込み気味に感じられるという受け止めもある。
書籍情報
- 出版社
- Tachyon Pubns
- 発売日
- 2022-07-12
- ページ数
- 293ページ
- 言語
- 英語
- サイズ
- 14.61 x 1.91 x 22.23 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781616963767
- ISBN-10
- 161696376X
- 価格
- 3968 JPY
- カテゴリ
- 洋書/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Science Fiction/Adventure
“Cyberpunk fans won’t want to miss this.” — Publishers Weekly “Next-generation science fiction.” —James L. Cambias, author of The Godel Operation 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. In this entertaining and edgy cyberpunk technothriller, Eliza McKay, a semi-disgraced hacker, discovers that a basic personality-retrieval operation is far more dangerous when IRL corporate interests collide with the virtual reality of the Swim Appeals strongly to the consumers of commercial thrillers, science fiction TV-series, movies, and games; and tech-based novels from Neuromancer to the popular Murderbot series ( All Systems Red ) Unger is a virtual-reality expert currently working on the popular Oculus VR gaming headsets at Facebook; she frequently appears on panels and at workshops on narrative gaming National marketing plan to include review mailings to leading trade, science fiction, and technothriller publications; ARCs available via NetGalley, Edelweiss+, and Goodreads; author appearances and virtual events at major venues to include tech companies such as Facebook and Google; San Francisco Bay Area bookstores, ComicCon, SXSF, and the SF in SF author series; custom cover-reveal app game (The Reveal); Instagram blog tour, podcasts, interviews, and guest posts
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.
レビュー
-
Cyberpunk style
Seemed like it would be a new "Neuromancer" and it had a lot going for it. Like many sci fi novels one reads the author spent a lot of time building an interesting world and then well on into the book realized they had to get on with the story so things happen at a fast an uneven pace with a number of 'deus ex machina" called in to provide the missing glue. Still the world and the ideas were intriguing so it wasn't a terrible read - just not William Gibson. Side note: I'm convinced it must be editors forcing writers to graft in scenes or characters who are compelled to discuss their gender orientation. "Presenting as they/them" yadiya. I doubt that one hundred years from now this is going to be an issue so finding current topical references really disrupts the flow. Reminds me of an old science fiction book I read once where the captain stood on the bow of his star ship battle cruiser with his first officer as the printout chattered a report. OMG lost me there completely.
-
Solider Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk ist ja nach den 90er Jahren ein bisschen aus der Mode gekommen, vermutlich, weil die virtuelle Welt doch nicht so ist, wie man sich das vorgestellt hat. Und weil Implantate zum "Hacken" sich nicht so richtig durchgesetzt haben. The Extracionist updated jetzt die Ideen von früher, auch wenn bestimmte Motive gleich bleiben. Vor allem ist die Protagonistin eben Programmiererin (mit Implantaten!), die einen Auftrag bekommt, hinter dem natürlich sehr viel mehr steckt, als sie anfangs dachte. Unger updated dabei die Technologie sanft, führt Drohnen oder Nanonots auf eine Art und Weise ein, wie sie realistisch klingen. Der Roman ist absolut solide - es gibt nur wenig leerlauf, viel Action und den einen oder anderen Kniff. Superneues oder wirklich originelles findet man zwar nicht, aber man wird durchaus gut unterhalten. Ich halte die Auflösung für ein bisschen enttäuschend (auch weil das "Punk"-Element beim Cyberpunk fehlt), aber ich habe das Buch sehr gerne gelesen. Viel Auswahl hat man bei dem Genre sowieso nicht (mehr). Interessanterweise ist Unger tatsächlich Programmierin. Das hat den Vorteil, dass viele Vorgänge durchaus logisch erscheinen, aber den Nachteil, dass manchmal (sic) die Beschreibung der Vorgänge in der virtuellen Welt etwas zu sehr ins technische abrutschen.
-
Too long
I understand this book got an award, but honestly, i think this book should have been published with only 250 Pages.
-
Good Cyber punk novel
I like this book. I am 99% finished. The writing is solid and the story has me invested. As cyberpunk has changed over time, I have re-calibrated my views and been more open to different interpretations. This book is doesn't make a profound impact on the genre (like Neuromancer) or breath new life (like Snow Crash). The book is solid, well written, and a interesting story. Definitely up there in my favorites list. Nothing really negative to say about the book. I look forward another book by the author.
関連する文学賞
- フィリップ・K・ディック賞 第41回（2023年） ・Winner