The Retrieval Artist: A Retrieval Artist Short Novel

Hadad Yu “recovers” things for a living. Things, not people, not animals. Things. Until he gets in trouble and must work for the alien Gyonnese. They want a person to answer for her crimes, and they want to use Yu to get her. He reluctantly agrees, and sets off events that will change his life and the lives around him forever. A companion piece to the Recovery Man novel, The Recovery Man’s Bargain explores the motivations of one of the stranger characters in the Retrieval Artist universe.

“Rusch’s story is a powerful and engaging exploration of the pitfalls of moral compromise.”
—SF Gospel

“… has a Golden Age vibe … (an) impressive tale.”
—Tangent Online

“Rusch has constructed a disturbing psychological SFnal crime thriller, set in a universe where powerful corporations and individuals can twist the laws to their own profit. Haddad Yu is a well-realized and complex character…”
—Internet Review of Science Fiction

Kristine Kathryn Rusch is the author of over ninety novels, seven of which were set in the Retrival Artist world. She had won and been nominated for just about every award in mystery and science fiction and fantasy. She won the Hugo Award for her writing and her editing and the Asimov’s Reader’s Choice Award three times. She writes fantasty romance under the name Kristine Grayson and a hardboilded mystery series under the name Kris Nelscott.

If there’s any such thing as a sci-fi CSI, the Retrieval Artist novels set the tone.”
The Edge Boston.

Retrieval Artist Miles Flint has a mission: take down the law firm of Wagner, Stuart, and Xendor. He enlists the aides of old friends and old enemies. But as the mission gets underway, one member of his team dies horribly.

Flint can no longer take on the entire universe. He violated the rules of his Retrieval Artist mentor and now has a lot to lose. But he can’t reverse the events he set in motion—and the crisis he caused might destroy everything—and everyone—he loves.

“Here’s Rusch’s genius: She doesn’t confine herself to the rules of any one genre. She does world-creation and social criticism like the best sci-fi writers; she creates crime stories that would be Best Episodes on Law & Order or CSI; and she creates stories of human relationships that rank her with the finest character writers working today.”

New York Times bestselling author
Orson Scott Card

The long-awaited return of the Retrieval Artist series!

Four years ago, a bomb destroyed part of the dome protecting Armstrong, the largest city on the Moon. Now, as the city celebrates its survival with an event it calls Anniversary Day, a larger threat looms—one that begins with the murder of the mayor, and spreads across the Moon itself.

Even with every new technological device at her disposal, Moon Security Chief Noelle DeRicci can’t stay ahead of the unfolding disaster. As the situation gets worse, Retrieval Artist Miles Flint hurries to his daughter’s school to protect her. And Detective Bartholomew Nyquist finds himself in the middle of everything, from that first bombing to the Anniversary Day crisis itself.

A thriller with several mysteries at its core, Anniversary Day is Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s most exciting Retrieval Artist novel yet.

“Rusch does a superb job of making the Retrieval Artist books work as fully satisfying standalone mysteries and as installments in a gripping saga full of love, loss, grief, hope, adventure, and discovery. It is also some of the best science fiction ever written.”
New York Times bestselling author
Orson Scott Card

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 six (so far) bestselling, award-winning Retrieval Artist novels, inspired by this novella, one of the top ten science fiction detective series ever.

New York Times bestselling author Orson Scott Card calls the Retrieval Artist series “some of the best science fiction ever written.” Io9 says Miles Flint is one of “the top ten greatest science fiction detectives of all time.” The Disappeared is Flint’s very first adventure, the story that turns him from a police detective in the Armstrong Dome on the Moon into a Retrieval Artist.

In a universe where humans and aliens have formed a loose government called the Earth Alliance, treaties guarantee that humans are subject to alien laws when on alien soil. But alien laws often make no sense, and the punishments vary from loss of life to loss of a first-born child.

Now three cases have collided: a stolen spaceyacht filled with dead bodies, two kidnapped human children, and a human woman on the run, trying to Disappear to avoid alien prosecution. Flint must enforce the law—giving the children to aliens, solving the murders, and arresting the woman for trying to save her own life. But how is a man supposed to enforce laws that are unjust? How can he sacrifice innocents to a system he’s not sure he believes in? How can Miles Flint do the right thing in a universe where the right thing is very, very wrong?

“Rusch does a superb job of making the Retrieval Artist books work as fully satisfying standalone mysteries and as installments in a gripping saga full of love, loss, grief, hope, adventure, and discovery. It is also some of the best science fiction ever written.”
—New York Times bestselling author
Orson Scott Card

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 six (so far) bestselling, award-winning Retrieval Artist novels one of the top ten science fiction detective series ever.

The Moon, shaken by the Anniversary Day tragedies, deals with devastation. The Earth Alliance believes another attack imminent, but no one knows where or when it will strike. Just like no one knows who ordered the attacks in the first place.

The Moon’s chief security office, Noelle DeRicci, does her best to hold the United Domes government together. But Retrieval Artist Miles Flint, dissatisfied with the investigation into the Anniversary Day events, begins an investigation of his own. He builds a coalition of shady operatives, off-the-books detectives, and his own daughter, Talia, in a race against time. A race, he quickly learns, that implicates organizations he trusts—and people he loves.

“Rusch does a superb job of making the Retrieval Artist books work as fully satisfying standalone mysteries and as installments in a gripping saga full of love, loss, grief, hope, adventure, and discovery. It is also some of the best science fiction ever written.”
—New York Times bestselling author
Orson Scott Card

Rusch offers up a well-told mystery with interesting characters and a complex, riveting storyline that includes a healthy dose of suspense, all building toward an ending that may not be what it appears.
—RT Book Reviews

The latest Retrieval Artist science fiction thriller is an engaging investigative whodunit starring popular Miles Flint on a comeback mission. The suspenseful storyline is fast-paced and filled with twists as the hero comes out of retirement to confront his worst nightmare.
—GeneGoRoundReviews.com

We have to admit that we’re a newcomer to the series, but may have to dig in to the earlier books. Blowback does stand on its own as a great read!
—Astroguyz.com

International bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch has won or been nominated for every major award in the science fiction field. She has won Hugos for editing The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and for her short fiction. She has also won the Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine Readers Choice Award six times, as well as the Anlab Award from Analog Magazine, Science Fiction Age Readers Choice Award, the Locus Award, and the John W. Campbell Award. Her standalone sf novel, Alien Influences, was a finalist for the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award. Io9 said her Retrieval Artist series featured one of the top ten science fiction detectives ever written. She writes a second sf series, the Diving Universe series, as well as a fantasy series called The Fey. She also writes mystery, romance, and fantasy novels, occasionally using the pen names Kris DeLake, Kristine Grayson and Kris Nelscott. For more information on her writing, go to www.kristinekathrynrusch.com.

“Wonderfully plotted and written, this fourth entry in Rusch’s Retrieval Artist series is a compelling read.”
RT Book Review

A cold case starts it all—human bones discovered beneath the Martian soil in the alien Disty’s main city. The Disty evacuate, believing the area contaminated. Forensic anthropologist Aisha Costard investigates and discovers that the bones belong to a woman last seen thirty years before.

But the woman didn’t vanish, nor did anyone believe her dead. She Disappeared, along with her children, after being charged with crimes against an alien civilization. Costard believes the children hold the key to this mystery, but she can’t find them on her own. So she returns to the Moon to hire Miles Flint.

As Flint investigates, events move swiftly around him, and suddenly what began as a simple murder case turns into an incident that might destroy the entire solar system….

“Here’s Rusch’s genius: She doesn’t confine herself to the rules of any one genre. She does world-creation and social criticism like the best sci-fi writers; she creates crime stories that would be Best Episodes on Law & Order or CSI; and she creates stories of human relationships that rank her with the finest character writers working today.”
New York Times bestselling author
Orson Scott Card

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 six (so far) bestselling, award-winning Retrieval Artist novels one of the top ten science fiction detective series ever.

All of his short life, Paavo Deshin has seen ghosts. The same two ghosts who have now approached him on the school playground, ghosts who look older and actually smell bad. Paavo’s cry for help brings the authorities, a few lawyers, and Retrieval Artist Miles Flint, who learns some secrets about the ghosts—and about Paavo’s parents. This short stand-alone science fiction novel in the Retrieval Artist series received a Special Mention from the prestigious international UPC contest.

“The Possession of Paavo Deshin” is a masterfully crafted story. Definitely don't miss this one.
—Tangent Online

A custody battle like no other, where every side has its own agenda. An engaging story, a title very apt.
—Internet Review of Science Fiction

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.

RT Book Reviews Reviewers Award Choice Nominee for Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year.

“Rusch continues her provocative interplanetary detective series with healthy doses of planet-hopping intrigue, heady legal dilemmas and well-drawn characters.”
Publishers Weekly

When she arrives home from school on Callisto, Talia Shindo finds two strange men in her house. They terrorize her, and kidnap her mother. The men leave Talia behind. She’s thirteen, brilliant, and determined to find her missing mother.

Retrieval Artist Miles Flint works a seemingly unrelated case, digging into files left him by his mentor. Only he finds a connection to the Shindo kidnapping, a connection that shatters everything he ever knew.

The two cases collide, changing Flint, changing Talia, and changing the universe around them—forever.

“This high-tech detective story, part of the Retrieval Artist series, has hard science fiction, a complex whodunit and a fascinating look at alien bureaucracy. All the elements for an entertaining story are here: well-drawn, believable characters with frailties and flaws, credible scientific theory, and authentic-feeling settings.”
RT Book Reviews

Retrieval Artist Miles Flint gets an urgent message from his mentor, Paloma. But by the time he arrives at her apartment, she’s dead, the victim of a terrible murder. The police, already on the scene, think Flint’s connected to the death.

Effectively frozen out of the investigation, he starts one of his own, and discovers secrets that Paloma kept, secrets that make Flint question everything he knew about her, everything she taught him about honor, ethics, and being a Retrieval Artist.

“Rusch does a superb job of making the Retrieval Artist books work as fully satisfying standalone mysteries and as installments in a gripping saga full of love, loss, grief, hope, adventure, and discovery. It is also some of the best science fiction ever written.”
New York Times bestselling author
Orson Scott Card

“A science fiction murder mystery by one of the genre’s best….A book with complex characters, an interesting and unpredictable plot, and timeless and universal things to say about the human condition.”
The Panama News

If there’s any such thing as a sci-fi CSI, the Retrieval Artist novels set the tone.
The Edge Boston

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 six (so far) bestselling, award-winning Retrieval Artist novels one of the top ten science fiction detective series ever.

A woman dies in the domed city of Armstrong on the Moon. Detective Noelle DeRicci discovers that the victim is a Disappeared—an outlaw in hiding wanted for crimes against an alien civilization. Only DeRicci’s old partner, Retrieval Artist Miles Flint brought the Disappeared home, something he would have only done if he believed the alien government would exonerate her for her crimes.

But Flint and DeRicci are no longer partners; in fact, they’re on opposite sides of the law. Flint can’t tell DeRicci about his client’s role in a war between humans and a mysterious alien race. The Disappeared’s death is only the first volley in an escalation of that war, a war that threatens to engulf the entire solar system.

“Here’s Rusch’s genius: She doesn’t confine herself to the rules of any one genre. She does world-creation and social criticism like the best sci-fi writers; she creates crime stories that would be Best Episodes on Law & Order or CSI; and she creates stories of human relationships that rank her with the finest character writers working today.”

New York Times bestselling author
Orson Scott Card

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 six (so far) bestselling, award-winning Retrieval Artist novels one of the top ten science fiction detective series ever.