Finder

DEBUT Fergus Ferguson likes his job finding things that have gone missing in space. Called a glorified repo man, he's located and returned some unusual and dangerous cargo in his day, but this assignment is particularly tricky. He must find a stolen, armed spaceship, and wrest it away from a local gangster on the brink of warfare with a well-known arms dealer. Those caught in the middle include the families of miners and merchants, and an all-female community of lichen farmers. Cracking esoteric codes, improvising transportation and weapons, and being involved in knife fights in zero gravity is all part of a day's work. Palmer, a Hugo Award winner for her short fiction, has created a pulp-style space opera debut complete with aliens, stinging space roaches, and lethal spores that ramp up the dread and increase the hurdles for the heroes.