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    The Retrieval Artist: A Retrieval Artist Short Novel
    Unavailable
    The Retrieval Artist: A Retrieval Artist Short Novel
    Unavailable
    The Retrieval Artist: A Retrieval Artist Short Novel
    Ebook75 pages1 hour

    The Retrieval Artist: A Retrieval Artist Short Novel

    By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The short novel that started the entire Retrieval Artist series, The Retrieval Artist introduced Miles Flint to the world. Hugo-nominated, chosen as one of the best stories of the year, The Retrieval Artist created an entire universe, and Flint himself became what IO9 calls “one of the top ten science fiction detectives ever.”

    Part CSI, part Blade Runner, and part hard-boiled gumshoe, the retrieval artist of the series title, one Miles Flint, would be as at home on a foggy San Francisco street in the 1940s as he is in the domed lunar colony of Armstrong City.
    —The Edge

    It feels like a popular TV series crossed with a Spielberg film—engaging...
    —Locus

    Rusch mounts hard-boiled noir on an expansive sf background with great panache.
    —Booklist

    International bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch has won two Hugo awards, a World Fantasy Award, and three Asimov’s Readers Choice Awards. Io9 called her bestselling, award-winning Retrieval Artist novels, inspired by this novella, one of the top ten science fiction detective series ever.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWMG Publishing
    Release dateJul 28, 2010
    ISBN9781452325019
    Unavailable
    The Retrieval Artist: A Retrieval Artist Short Novel
    Author

    Kristine Kathryn Rusch

    New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. She publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov's Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.   

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    Reviews for The Retrieval Artist

    4/5

    29 ratings3 reviews

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    • 2/5
      "The short novel that started the entire Retrieval Artist series".

      "One of the top ten science fiction detective series ever."

      High praise indeed.

      Tech Noir: Once more into the breach!

      This short story starts out in the crummy office a private detective who is shortly visited by an attractive femme fatale and - Oh Dear God, I'm back in noir hell!!

      This is why terms like derivative and unimaginative are used by reviewers.

      Our private detective narrator explains that this is for appearances only, however. He's actually fabulously rich beyond all his wildest dreams and tells us in pretty much the same language. Then, for no apparent reason I can fathom, proceeds to treat his client with the utmost disrespect and arrogance. The author aims for the wise cracking,hard-boiled, surly bitter-vet Private eye but misses, leaving us with little more than a complete jerk of a main character who barges through women. He's not roguish, he's a ****.

      I'm not sure of the total word or page count of this short story (I have it on Kindle), but I was two-thirds through this story and nothing had actually happened yet. There'd been a meeting with the client, some research which involved sitting at a booth in a bar reading old newspaper articles, and then another meeting with the client. This guy is quite fond of telling his how good he is, yet so far, he's done nothing but sit on his arse.

      It's almost like the author realised this too and threw this into the story: "My work is nine-tenths research and one-tenth excitement. Most of the research comes in the beginning, and it's dry to most people, although I still find the research fascinating."

      So what happens is the world's self-confessed Retriever completely glosses over how he manages to track down his three main suspects from thousands of candidates and then take off to interview them.

      Okay.

      Now, this story is set in the future, on the moon in a galaxy of other strange alien races. This isn't really developed, and I thought the story was of sufficient length that it it should have been elaborated on more. The setting came off as feeling very shallow and thin on the ground to me. Instead, we get a complete jerk who reads the newspaper for research.

      The other issues that irked me was the old show, don't tell. There's a lot of the Narrator telling us and very little showing us. This combined with his attitude made it completely impossible to be emotionally or mentally engaged with the story. Comparisons to CSI are apt - the story just slides by without ever requiring you think.

      I can only assume that the author developed a more assured writing style and improved her craft since this short story first appeared in Analog SF in June 2000. Either that, or in a world were the highest rating TV shows are all based around amateurs doing amateurish attempts at highly-skilled professions, editorial standards have likewise dipped. It's not like hack authors make international best-selling stories is it? *couch*Tim Butcher*cough*

      It pains me to think the best Tech Noir detective story I've read is still a Shadowrun novel *shiver*. If i was a braver soul, I'd give the author the benefit of the doubt and check out one of her more refined, polished pieces. That would, perhaps, be more fair.




    • 4/5
      Short piece that shows what the future has waiting for the retrieval artist.
    • 5/5
      Apparently the beginning of the Retrieval Artist series, which I've been meaning to check out for some time now. The premise on which the series is based - that humans are doing business with other races, some of which have business practices that can drive humans to need to disappear to an extent never known before - is, well, interesting. I'm not sure that any other race would be quite as cruel to humans as we are to each other, honestly, and I've seen humans give each other more than enough reason to disappear quite thoroughly. Still, the writing was good, and the characters and plot were enjoyable. I do plan to find the novels and try one or two of them.