Kimberly Unger’s forthcoming NUCLEATION (not due until November, available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller or direct from Tachyon and for reviewers via EDELWEISS and NETGALLEY) continues to generate excitement.

For LIBRARY JOURNAL, Catherine Lantz recommends the debut novel.

Unger’s (The Gophers of High Charity) video game credits are well matched to this space adventure. Dialog among rivals, teammates, and machine interfaces keeps the story moving quickly. Recommended for fans of technothrillers and those who appreciate a strong lead character navigating readers through the technical bits.

Richard Chwedyk in GALAXY’S EDGE (Issue 46, September 2020) does as well.

Rest assured, Kimberly Unger has found a way to make piloting space vehicles via virtual reality interesting, compelling, with the requisite “stakes” high enough to maintain our interest. Besides, the VR piloting is just a first step. Unger has done a good job of fashioning a world where such an approach to space exploration feels solid under our feet.

What seals the deal is our hero, Helen Vectorovich. She is not an intensely complex character, but she is a determined character, searching for the truth behind two significant failures for which she has been held responsible. She keeps the novel on course where it can easily drift off into overly lengthy explanations of how pilots and operators inside these strange podlike things can control remote ships via “quantum entanglements.”

Unger participates in Brian D. Anderson’s AFTER THE CON podcast.

Over on the Tachyon Publications YouTube Channel, Unger’s animated avatar shares a bit from NUCLEATION.