Diving into the Wreck by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Kristine Kathryn Rusch

From the Publisher

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.

Publishers Weekly

Rusch (the Retrieval Artist series) delivers a page-turning space adventure while contemplating the ethics of scientists and governments working together on future tech. Boss is a middle-aged loner who searches ancient spacecraft for historical data. Driven by the memory of her mother being lured to a mysterious station called the Room of Souls, Boss believes humanity is haunted by old science, the kind that could kill us because we don't understand it. As Boss carefully builds a crew of spacers who are mostly loners with secrets, their notions about old and new tech, and about each other, must be re-evaluated as they first dive a 5,000-year-old ship for clues and then head for the Room. Rusch's spare prose sometimes flattens the characters, but admirably suits both the adventure and the deep moral questions she raises. (Nov.)

Best SF Reviews

Rusch takes the dangers inherent in deep sea diving and memorably puts them into the deep dark vacuum of space, making the exploration of the hulk a much more complicated issue than tends to be the case in the SF.

Internet Review of Science Fiction

Tense and gripping…. The endlessly enjoyable terror of dark, alien, empty spaces brimming with unknowable danger and impenetrable mystery should keep fans of the genre hooked.

Library Journal

When deep-space diver Boss discovers a rare Earth-made spacecraft from an era before faster-than-light travel, she determines, with a handpicked crew, to explore the vehicle and solve the mystery it presents but soon begins to wonder whether finding answers will exact too high a price. VERDICT Veteran sf/fantasy author and former editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Rusch ("Retrieval Artist" series) possesses a quiet, elegant prose style, even when telling a story that relies on hard science and powerful action. The voice of her narrator is thoughtful and compelling, bringing a level of personal accountability to a story that is more than space adventure, seeking out the secrets not only of space but of the soul.

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