Narrated by Jennifer Van Dyck
Audio Length: 9 hours and 45 minutes
One of New Year resolutions was to try to get back to my Sci-Fi roots. It seems that my reading tastes have slid more towards fantasy over the last year or so and I am now on the hunt for some quality space opera adventure. While listening to the podcast The Dragon Page I came across an interesting interview with the author, Kristine Kathryn Rusch. What really caught my attention was that Ms. Rusch was looking to fill a void left behind in the current crop of Sci-Fi novels and write a good old fashion space adventure story. She makes the point that these types of stories are very popular on TV and at the movies, why aren’t the publishers following form? I could not agree more and within 10 minutes I downloaded her novel, Diving into the Wreck, to see if Ms. Rusch could back up her statements with a story. I instantly fell in love with story as she is able to capture the wonder and mystery of exploring the unknown.
Review
Ms. Rusch takes an interesting tact on her story, instead of exploring the future, her characters investigate the past. The story follows the adventures of salvage divers who explore abandon space vehicles for their treasures. If they are lucky they will find technology that has been lost to the ages that the Empire will pay handsomely for.
The main character, simply known as Boss, discovers on Old Earth era warship Dignity vessel that is 5,000 years old and very far from where it is supposed to be. Boss puts together a team to dive the old wreck. They soon discover ancient technology that will change the course of events in Empire and surrounding galaxies.
Diving into the Wreck is divided into three sections with the first two being separate stories that lead into the final conclusion. Ms. Rusch does a beautiful job of capturing the sense of wonder of exploring the unknown. The first involved diving the Dignity vessel wreck and the second story has the crew exploring a space station known as The Room of Lost Souls. Each of the stories entailed solving mysteries as to why each one exists and where did it come from. While listening to the story I felt a sense of awe as the story progressed and clues were uncovered.
In some respects Diving into the Wreck reminded me of Frederik Pohl’s Gateway (without the intervening physiologist discussion chapters). Salvage crews are constantly going on dangerous mission to uncover secrets of the past. Both are able to effectively convey the essence and fear of explorers going into uncharted areas of space to the reader.
Jennifer Van Dyck does an adequate job of narrating the story. Her narration is pretty straight forward without much variation in her voice inflictions. The only quibble I had was that she made Boss sound more a CEO business woman than a space explorer.
Final Word
Ms. Rusch sent out to create a story that harkens back to the old time Sci-Fi space opera adventures which I grew up on and she nailed it perfectly. It is what has been missing from the Sci-Fi genre for far too long. The good news is that the end of the book leaves open the possibilities of sequels which I will be highly anticipating. This is easily my favorite book of 2010 so far.
My Rating
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