The Extractionist

Winner of the 2023 Philip K. Dick Award

In her breakout technothriller, virtual reality expert Kimberly Unger has created the iconic, badass, cyberpunk heroine that you desperately need: Eliza McKay. McKay is a disgraced underground hacker who is just trying to take back her career one dangerous job at a time. But when her latest contract throws her into the middle of a corporate power struggle, she finds herself fighting for her life in both the real and digital worlds.

Eliza McKay is an Extractionist: an expert in the virtual reality space where people's minds are uploaded as digital personas. When rich or important people get stuck in the Swim for reasons that are sleazy, illegal, or merely unlucky—it's McKay's job to quietly extract them. And McKay's job just got a lot more dangerous.

After McKay repels an attack on her Swim persona, hired thugs break into her house to try to hack her cybernetic implants directly. Meanwhile, the corporate executive she was hired to rescue from VR space is surprisingly reluctant to be extracted. Something is lurking in the Swim, and some very powerful people will stop at nothing to keep it secret. This job might be the big break McKay has been waiting for—if she can survive long enough to beat the hackers at their own game.

In The Extractionist, virtual reality and gaming expert Unger has created an unforgettable cyberplayground where the rich still make their own rules, but a skilled operator remains the wildcard.