Diving into the Wreck ~Kristine Kathryn Rusch
–published 2009
–Pyr Books
–268 pages
–4.25/5 stars
Boss, the protagonist of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s latest novel, is a middle-aged wreck diver. She owns her ship, craves solitude, and alternates between taking tourists out for recreational dives and putting together crack teams to investigate the wrecks of ships she discovers in her travels. On a return trip she noticed a brief signal that her instincts prompt her to investigate. Doing so reveals something to her trained eye that simply cannot be: the derelict hulk of a 5,000 year old Earth ship that could not possibly exist this far out in space. Not willing to believe her eyes, she conducts some research and returns to the wreck with a hand-picked crew, searching for answers. Answers that will forever alter the lives of Boss and her crew and will put her face to face with a past that she would just as soon forget.
Diving into the Wreck is an intense, introspective, character-driven adventure that has moved to the top of my list of books to recommend to those who either have never tried science fiction, or are of the belief that science fiction isn’t for them.
Boss is a fully realized character. The reader sees Rusch’s created future unfold through the multi-dimensional person that springs to life on the page. Boss is flawed, she makes mistakes, her errors exact a price and that price affects her decision-making and the course she chooses for her life. She has old wounds and unforgiveness that surface. But she is also a bright, adventurous, caring and dedicated individual. She has a deep and abiding love of history and a respect for the historical value of the ships she dives. She is not a scavenger, she is an historian first and foremost. You cannot help but get to know Boss in a deep and personal way which makes for a very satisfying reading experience.
I have always been fascinated by deep sea diving, particularly when it comes to exploring shipwrecks. It never fails but at least once a year I get the urge and find myself at the library or searching the television stations to binge on shipwreck documentaries. In addition I am particularly fond of images like this one by Stephan Martiniere and how they spark the imagination. Having recently been impressed by Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s short story writing, it was the fact that Diving into the Wreck combined these two interests that pushed me over the edge to move it to the top of my reading pile.
Have you ever been deep sea diving? I myself have not, but I have had the pleasure of snorkeling off the Hawaiian coast. On one such adventure I was swimming around just beneath the surface in some murky water and suddenly there was an enormous piece of an engine in front of me. It scared me and excited me at the same time. You would have thought I had come across some ancient shipwreck. That tiny adventure gave me a taste of what it must be like to dive wrecks, and Rusch captures that excitement and awe in a palpable way in this book. The tension, suspense, and excitement of the dive compels you to ignore sleep and keep reading. I do not know if Rusch is a diver herself, but she writes it in a way that feels believable, and that believability adds a tremendous depth to the novel.
The history that Rusch threads into the narrative also adds depth. In this future, thousands of years of space travel has existed. Scientific and technological advances have been born, died, and are all but forgotten, and the rediscovery of ancient technology brings with it the potential for great danger and harm. This old science plays an important and interesting role in Diving into the Wreck and this is another area where I feel Rusch excels, because the science and technology revealed in this novel is not the kind of fear-inducing hard science that turn many away from the science fiction genre. The science and tech in Diving into the Wreck is handled with a layman’s touch and is woven into the fabric of the story in a way that makes it easy accessible to any reader.
Portions of Diving into the Wreck existed previously in two Asimov Reader’s Choice Award-winning novellas, “Diving into the Wreck” and “Room of Lost Souls”. I haven’t read either of these novellas but I would be very interested in knowing if anyone has and what you thought of them. I’m curious enough that I plan on checking them out at some point. I said in the opening that I would recommend this book to non-sf fans, and I wanted to reiterate that point. As a character-driven story, this book could have been set in any genre. It is an extra special pleasure for geeks like me, who happen to enjoy stories set in a future where space travel is the norm, that this is a science fiction novel. I firmly believe that any reader who enjoys good characterization and a good solid adventure could pick this book up and find themselves locked away with it, not wanting to put it down. That is exactly what happened to me.
I am thrilled to know that Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a number of other novels and short stories already in print as I am definitely a fan. If you are looking for a fun, satisfying, page-turning read, you cannot go wrong with Diving into the Wreck.
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This book is a selection for:
Mind Voyages (for the Pluto Voyage)
The 2010 42 Challenge
The 2010 Reading Challenge (for the Shiny & New category).
Sounds fun!
Great Martiniere image. Makes me wish it was the cover instead of the one Pyr used. It’s not a horrible cover it’s just that I find the Martiniere image SO much cooler.
Jeff: I like the Dave Seely image, but if it was my choice I too would go with with Martiniere.
It really was a fun read, I think you would enjoy it.
That’s a really, really strong review, Carl. Well written and considered, you make good points and give a feel for the book without spoiling anything. I read your words with caution, as this is near the top of MY TBR pile at the moment, but there are other things currently “under way”.
This book has gotten a lot of notice, and won some awards – or at least some popular vote recognitions – and I hope it is the book that moves Rusch up into the ranks of top SF writers, because I think she’s there but not yet sufficiently recognized.
That Martiniere image is one of my favorites of his, though I don’t think it fits the situation you describe here. My guess is the editor responsible for the cover image wanted to focus on the character, not the deep space salvage aspect, which may have been a mistake.
You keep reviewing authors I have not gotten to yet. Now I need to track down some Rusch books and get caught up.
By the way, I am loving Old Man’s War.
Thank you for continuing to post quality reviews. Your site is one of my favorites.
When will the post be up for Once Upon a Time?
Jim: The post for Once Upon a Time IV will go up during the first part of March, as its start date is March 21st (a combination nod to the start of spring and my wife’s birthday).
I’m so glad you are loving OMW. There are several of us here who are big Scalzi fans and it is always a pleasure when someone else discovers him and enjoys the work.
I didn’t realize that Rusch had won a Hugo a few years ago for Millennium Babies. I need to track that story down as well as several others.
Richard: I would agree entirely with your assessment on why the current cover works better, as the novel is much more about the person, in my opinion, than the diving. And it is a really nice cover, so there is nothing to complain about. Pyr has been doing well by their authors, cover-wise, in my opinion.
Thanks for the kind words about the review. When books are this fun to read the reviews really write themselves. I always hope that my reviews are non-spoiler, the exception being when I specifically say that I am writing a spoiler review. I hate to ruin any part of the reading experience for someone else and I’m sure that even when I don’t think I am spoiling anything that there are more astute folks than myself who read between the lines and figure things out despite my care and concern.
I wouldn’t in any way be disappointed to see this book on nominations lists this year. In fact I’ll be disappointed if it isn’t.
Jim – you might want to be aware that this book is a stand-alone, so you need not get started on a series before reading it.
The series she is writing just now is the Retrieval Artist series. Here is the series so far:
The Disappeared (2002)
Extremes (2003)
Consequences (2004)
Buried Deep (2005)
Paloma (2006)
Recovery Man (2007)
Duplicate Effort (2009)
Most of these are not in print but can be found (for a price) through used vendors. Why ROC has not kept these in print is a mystery to me. I’m glad Rusch has moved to Pyr.
I will throw out one other point in the cover discussion. My main problem is when characters are on covers. Often I find artists don’t capture the characters the way I imagine them. Additonally I find artists often don’t even portray characters correctly based on the descriptions we the reader are given in the novels. The problem is once I see an artist rendering of a character on a cover it’s hard for me to put that imagine out of my mind. This happened to me recently with a David Weber book ” On Basilisk Station “. The first time I came across this book was it’s first hardcover printing. The copy I have now is the current MMPB. The current imagine on the MMPB is spot on with the actual books description of the character while the hardcover version is not but I like the hardcover one better. Since I saw the hardcover first it’s hard to get out of my mind even though I know it’s off base.
I think that’s why I like many Martiniere and Berkey covers where even when people are depicted they are very small so you can’t really see the details. Your mind is still left to fill in those details based on the author’s work.
Again I don’t the Pyr cover ” bad ” it’s just not what I would have chosen if I had been the art director. I do like many Pyr covers case in point the recent Desolation Road cover ( by Martiniere ).
Jeff: I certainly hear what you are saying and I’m of a mixed opinion about that, always dependent on whether I like the artist and how close it is to the actual description of the person. What I did like about Seely’s cover is that once I learned the approximate age of the character I did think he captured her well. My first thought was that he had painted her too young, but when I took a second look it seemed pretty much spot on. Got to admit, though, that I can’t recall now if the hair color, eyes etc. are accurate or if Rusch even mentions them in the book. Great memory I have! 😉
I can tell you one thing, as much as I like to have opinions about a book cover, I’m not sure I would want to be an art director. Even looking at this cover: I think it makes sense what Richard says about this being a character focused book so you put the character on the cover. But does the cover make the average male reader want to pick it up or not? What about the female reader? Do they look at this and think it is about some sexy spacewoman and dismiss it as guy’s fiction despite the female authorship? All interesting questions.
Which does bring me to a point I didn’t make in the review and that is that this is the kind of science fiction that I think is also a strong addition to fiction that should appeal to female readers. Boss is strong and independent but not tom-boyish or shrewish. She is intelligent and seems to be able to form bonds equally with men and women. She is an adventurous person but is not superhuman. She is someone I think women can relate to.
Richard: Thanks for the book list. Although I believe we have had this conversation recently, I will reiterate what you said the other day which is that I hope a company like Pyr will pick up this other series and reprint them either individually or in some form of omnibus. It is a shame that she is still producing works in a series where readers cannot easily obtain the first books in the series.
You had me as soon as you said “character-driven adventure” — that’s my type of read! This sounds like it *might* pair well with Aguirre’s Sirantha Jax novels (which I love, and they’ve made me want to read more sci-fi as a result.) This one is definitely going on the tbr list!
Chelle: It might just pair well at that. I can definitely see you liking this and I hope you get a chance to read it soon.
This sounds great and I’m very much a layman when it comes to science so I’m always looking for books that can break it down.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’m well into chapter 2 and quite enjoying the book. It’s just what I needed right now. As much as I was enjoying reading many of the Scifi grandmasters stories I was in the mood to change gears to a new modern era author for a time. I did some more research on the author and have ordered book 1 of her Retrieval Artist series from my library. I will leave a comment again on this post once I’ve finished my dive. 🙂
Jeff: Glad to hear you are enjoying it already, that bodes well for the rest of your experience with the book. I’ll be interested in taking a look at that first book of the other series when you get it in.
Jodie: What science there is here is revealed at a very nice level of understanding that enhances the story rather than drawing attention to itself.
Anyone going to be watching the Olympics?
Richard: Certainly plan on watching some of it. I am not big on the opening ceremonies myself, but I’ll watch some of the events. I generally think I won’t watch much and then get caught up in Olympic Fever!
Richard & Carl: I have on the opening ceremonies tonight at work. I always enjoy watching it when I can but it’s hard at this time of year. I will try and catch some Sking and Hockey. Those are my favorites for the winter with Ice Skating and curling being my least favorite.
The coverage of the OPening Ceremonies seemed kind of chaotic. That it didn’t begin until Midnight EST and ran until nearly 3:30 a.m. is unbelievable. I kept watching when the telecast first came on, and it was just interviews and yak-yak-yak. By the time the O.C. began I was yawning, and I only saw a little of it before I hit the sack. Wife stayed up, her answer, when, half-awake, I asked her how it was: Cheesy.
I will agree with your wife. They were Cheesy.
I work a part-time job on Friday nights so I just had it on a tv and caught some of it now and then when I could. From what I saw though if I would have watched the whole thing it would have put me to sleep as well. I’m so they didn’t run as late into the night for me.
The sad thing is that I was now in the mood to watch something first thing this morning and nothing is on until 1 pm my time. With the Summer games it seems like something is on all the time not so with the Winter. Sigh.
It’s damn NBC. I’m in THE SAME TIME ZONE. There are events going on at 10:00 a.m. this morning (half an hour from now). But NBC is doing a time-delay on EVERYTHING, so the coverage doesn’t come on here until 2:00 this afternoon. Yes, I realize that when they do a time delay, they can edit things so the commercials (the network’s very reason for living, needless to say) can be placed just the way they want.
I’m also beaked that the other two NBC outlets will only be showing hockey, men’s on one channel and women’s on the other. They must very erroneously believe that ALL of America wants to see hundreds of hours of hockey, just because it’s Olympic hockey. Most people could care less about it.
Considering the weather problems they are having, the way the event is being televised, the number of commercials and the emphasis of “human interest” stories over presentation of the competition, I may not watch much of it. I used to really enjoy the skiing events, they can be exciting to watch, but hockey, skating, half-pipe, biathalon and a lot of the other stuff is boring anyway…
Maybe I’ll get some reading done, as well as work on getting the Study organized.
I don’t have many winter events that I *have* to watch, though generally if there is an interesting storyline involved and/or an American competitor, then I am interested in just about anything, even the figure skating. The major exception to this is the ice dancing thing or whatever they call it. That always seems like figure skating lite and I cannot get interested regardless of who is competing.
Carl (or is that… Varl?) I apologize for making this a complaint forum, I know that’s not what it for. I’ll try my best to behave and at least stay on topic. Really.
Meanwhile I’ve started Ruche’s EXTREMES, the second book in the Retrieval Artist series. About 20 pages in. Also am working my way into a short story anthology FEDERATIONS which holds some promise.
I hope that link went in right.
Richard: Complaints are always welcome, it all can’t be sweetness and light or we’ll all die of sugar-shock!
I just added Federations to my library queue last week. I really like John Joseph Adams and the anthology sounds very interesting.
I checked out Federations from my library a few months ago. I wanted to checkout a George RR Martin story in it specifically. It was just ok. checked out a few others stories but didn’t get into them so I took it back to the library.
You guys may enjoy it a lot more. I didn’t read many stories so maybe I just hit the duds that mine most anthologies.
Richard – I’m with you on the Olympics. I finally get to see some today and all that’s on right then is long distance speed skating. Argh. Shoot me now that is so boring. I couldn’t watch it for long so the wife and I are now just watching stuff we DVR’d instead.
FEDERATIONS: 1st story (Orson Scott Card) VG, 2nd story: dud, 3rd story: G-VG. More to come. I know that’s not the in-depth report we’ll expect from Carl the Varl, but it’s where I’m coming from this Valentine’s Day morning.
Little known fact: The Varl were a sentient alien race that once ruled a small portion of our spiral arm, but were nearly exterminated in a deep space war with another alien race, the Freen. Rumor has it some members of the Varl found their way to Earth and are living among us…
Richard: And here I thought my re-naming on your post comments was a typing error, instead you were fishing to see if perhaps I am one of the members of this supposedly nearly-extinct race! You’re a clever one.
This is the plot of your next SF short story, Carl.
Evidently. 🙂
You got me with your comment “…recommend to those who either have never tried science fiction, or are of the belief that science fiction isn’t for them.” Although I’m not completely new to SF ( I’ve read 4 SF books so far) I still approach each SF book with some suspicion and caution. It is a rather intimidating genre, after all. But you make this book sounds really interesting, so I think I’ll give it a try.
Thanks for the review!
Simcha: Great! I think you’ll really enjoy this. I don’t believe there is anything intimidating about this at all, it is just a really fun, engaging story.
This has been on my radar for a while, but your review has convinced me to add it to my list! I’m all about character-driven stories.
Memory: It is a really good one, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by adding it to, and moving it up, your list.
I just read this book after seeing it highly recommended by different book reviewers and now I’m curious to see how those other reviewers’ opinions compare to my own. This was actually the first modern SF book that I’ve read, as well as my first space travel book, so it was all pretty new to me. I did feel it was a very approachable scifi book, without all those incomprehensible scientific terms and ideas. But what I felt lacking in the book was the development of the different characters. I didn’t feel that I came to know or care about any of the characters, which, for me, is one of the most important aspects of a book. I also thought the end was rather anti-climatic and I couldn’t understand what the motive was for the rest of the team to make the choices that they did, which resulted in them having to go on the run. I’m surprised that these issues don’t seem to bother anyone else.
Simcha: I’m glad you felt the story was an approachable one, as that is certainly something I felt, but being an old hand at science fiction that was just my best guess, not something I would know first hand.
As for your feelings on the book itself, I respect them even though they are very different from my own. I felt the main character, Boss, who the story is all about, is a wonderfully developed character, and I felt that several of the side characters were developed to a point that I did care about them, even if they made decisions or took actions that I felt were unwise. As far as the ending, I guess I didn’t think the motives of the various characters were anything but very clear and I personally didn’t find the end anti-climatic at all. That of course is just my experience with it, though it sounds like those experiences are echoed in other reviews you have read. In the end I hope that this book has turned you on to the potential that science fiction has and I hope that you read much more.
Before I write my own review I’m trying to understand why no one else seems to feel the same way that I do about the lack of character development, and to see if I perhaps missed something. Since I don’t have anyone to actually talk to about the book, I have to go find other bloggers to discuss with 🙂
So, while the character of Boss is slowly developed throughout the book, I really didn’t get a feel for any of the other characters other then Karl, and that was just towards the end. And even Boss’s character remained somewhat unfathomable to me, how she could remain so aloof and friendless. Perhaps because she was so distant from everyone, and the story is told from her POV, we don’t really get to know any of the other characters in a personal way, but I felt that left the story lacking somewhat.
And regarding my comments about the characters’ motives, I couldn’t understand why any of the other team mates would choose to abandon everything they have in order join Boss in her new quest. While they were upset by Karl’s death, it wouldn’t have been enough to make them do what they choose to do, in the end. They don’t have the same driving force that Boos does, fueled by her mother’s death and her father’s betrayal. I’m really just curious why none of this bothers anyone else who has reviewed the book
Simcha – I’m only half way through the book so far and I do think your comments on character development are accurate.
I look at the material a little differently than a normal novel though since the first two stories in this book appeared first as short stories in Asimov’s. I felt the author really wrote these stories in the spirit of old action style pulp stories. The old pulp stories I read usually focused on just the main character as far as any character development and even with those main characters there still was much growth. I see Boss as that kind of character. An old pulp “hero” for the lack of a better definition. I honestly don’t think your feelings are off base at least to me either.
If you want to see a great Sci Fi tv series with wonderful character development I would suggest checking out the short lived Firefly series on DVD. I can’t think of another really good Scifi book to recommend right now. Sorry.
Jeff is correct in that many short stories do really focus on just the main character…which could actually be said of many novels as well, not just within this genre. I see growth and revelation in Boss as the book plays out over the course of both short stories which allows the reader to understand not only her motivations, but why she has become the type of person that she is. As for the side characters, like I said, I thought they were “developed”, which is perhaps the wrong word, to the point where I enjoyed reading about them, even though I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they had a great deal of depth and dimension. But in this kind of story I don’t think that is the point. The point is that all of the characters that Boss interacts with are really there to reveal more about her and I think that is done very well.
I guess I don’t find it at all unfathomable to have a character who has had such tragedy in her life, working in what is a really solitary profession, not have a lot of friends or form close relationships. In my mind her doing that sort of thing would actually be a betrayal to the type of person she was supposed to be. She was a tough, independent and solitary character who obviously had the capacity to develop feelings for people and yet kept them at arms length for her own survival. As we discover the reasons for this it makes sense. It wouldn’t have made sense to me as a reader if she would have suddenly developed all these intense, personal relationships.
Please don’t misunderstand me in thinking that I am saying that you are wrong and I am right. We just did not have the same experience with the book is all.
And kudos to Jeff on the Firefly mention, that series is a great character-driven series. As for books, I would venture to say that Speaker for the Dead has some great characterization in it, but I do think you have to read Ender’s Game to truly get all that is going on and for it to have the same emotional impact.
Jeff, I really hope I didn’t spoil any of the book for you with my comments. I had hoped that this post was old enough that my comments might be overlooked by anyone who is currently reading the book, though I certainly appreciate your insights. I suppose that if I were viewing each section of the book as an individual short story then some of the issues that I had with the book as a whole, would not have bothered me. I have heard good things about Firefly but have never seen it, perhaps I’ll check it out.
Carl, I also appreciate hearing your honest opinions, particularity since they seem to reflect those of so many other reviewers and I wanted to understand them. I did read Ender’s Game many years ago but I can’t recall too much about it. I think I’ll give it another try, now that I’m making a concerted effort to read more scifi.
If you do, please go on and read Speaker for the Dead (or listen to it 😉 ) afterward you are done. Those two books in tandem tell a story with a surprising depth that is not common in many science fiction stories. Also, in regards to character growth, the Old Man’s War trilogy by John Scalzi follows the story of John, and later Jane, over a time of growth and development that works really well and makes you really care about them as characters. I highly recommend those as well: Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades, and The Last Colony. If you read and like those you might also like the YA companion novel, Zoe’s Tale.
Simcha – No worries.
I will echo Carl’s recommendation on Old Man’s War by John Scalzi as well.