Monday, December 10, 2012

Blowback -- Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Blowback is the latest book in Rusch's "Retrieval Artist" series, but Miles Flint has moved way beyond being a retrieval artist by this time.  The book picks up shortly after the events in the previous book (Anniversary Day) in which most of the domed cities on the moon were bombed by clones in an orchestrated terror attack.  Flint is helping his former partner on the police, Noelle DeRicci, investigate the attacks, trying to figure out the how and the why.  Meanwhile he's dealing with the problems of his daughter, Talia, who is herself a clone.  As it happens his daughter and her school are more closely tied into things than it might first appear.  The big fear of DeRicci is that there might be another attack, even worse than the first, so there's also the problem of finding out what it is, if it exists, and trying to stop it.  

At the same time, Iniko Zagrando is conducting a dangerous undercover operation for the Earth Alliance.  As the investigation progresses, we can see that it has major implications for the one Flint is conducting.  

Besides that, there's DeRicci's own investigation, along with that of Jin Rastigan among an alien race, and they too begin to point in the direction that Flint wouldn't have thought possible when it all begain.

There's a lot going on in Blowback, and Rusch makes the details and the characters absolutely convincing.  This is fine entertainment if you're a fan of mind-stretching SF.  I have to warn you, however, that the ending is just the beginning.  There's closure, but at the same time you know there's a lot more to come.  Check it out.