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Peter Watts's first novel explores the last mysterious place on earth--the floor of a deep sea rift. Channer Vent is a zone of freezing darkness that belongs to shellfish the size of boulders and crimson worms three meters long. It's the temporary home of the maintenance crew of a geothermal energy plant--a crew made up of the damaged and dysfunctional flotsam of an overpopulated near-future earth. The crew's reluctant leader, basket case Lenie Clarke, can barely survive in the upper world, but she quickly falls under the rift's spell, just as Watts's magical descriptions of it enchant the reader: "Steam never gets a chance to form at three hundred atmospheres, but thermal distortion turns the water into a column of writhing liquid prisms, hotter than molten glass."
Watts is investigating monsters. Gigantic deep sea monsters, surgically-altered-from-human monsters, faceless jellied-brain computer monsters--which monsters are human, which are more than human, which are less? Watts keeps the story line stripped down to showcase the theme of dehumanization. The anonymous millions who live along the unstable shore of N'AmPac come under threat (a triggered earthquake, and perhaps a disaster that's slower but even more pitiless) from their own dehumanized creations. But Watts is less interested in whether Lenie can save the dry world as in whether she can save herself. In Starfish, Watts stretches the boundaries of humanity up, down, and sideways to see whether its dimensions reveal anything we'd be proud to be a part of. --Blaise Selby
From Publishers Weekly
Set in the early 21st century, Watts's debut describes a future when the search for energy leads to the tapping of geothermal sources deep in the ocean, as in the Pacific's Juan de Fuca Rift, near Canada's Northwest coast. The maintenance workers of the dangerous underwater power plants are selected for their psychotic tendencies, which enable them to forget their previous lives on dry land, and are then surgically altered to survive the intense pressure of the sea's abyssal depths. These changes, which render the workers amphibious, also leave them less than well equipped to face the threat of powerful, archaic bacterialike creatures that proliferate at the ocean bottom and use human hosts to carry them upward to dry land, where their superior DNA could render our species obsolete. The human resistance to these life forms is described with a great deal of explicit violence and graphic language, as well as well-orchestrated paranoia that recalls the classic SF tale "Who Goes There?" Watts's characterizations aren't strong but, as in Arthur C. Clarke's The Deep Range, the underwater setting and the technology employed there function as characters in their own right, and quite vigorously. The novel's pacing is excellent, making this, overall, a good bet for beach reading. (July) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In the near future, energy comes from the geothermal waters of the deep ocean, but the cost of providing power for the surface has a priceAthe sanity of the physically modified humans ("rifters") who live in an alien and dangerous environment. Watts's first novel elegantly captures the isolation and claustrophobia of the lightless ocean depths, smoothly blending psychological suspense with high-tech sf adventure. Large libraries should consider adding this to their sf collections. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Burdened by exploding population, the world turns to geothermal energy from vents thousands of feet under the ocean. The vents are explosive and unpredictable, sending bursts of superheated steam randomly into a nightmare world of transparent fish, 50-foot tube worms, and oddly fragile sea monsters whose teeth shatter when they bite. To survive at such depths, the crews of deep-sea power plants must be modified to withstand the pressure, "breathe" water, and see in a darkness illuminated only by phosphorescent creatures. The necessary mental modification isn't easily done; indeed, only the already emotionally damaged--battered women, paranoid ex-spies, child molesters--won't turn psychotic from it. One crew's members struggle among themselves at first, but soon discover strange satisfaction in their isolated world and insight into their troubled lives. A subtle paranoia is everywhere, however, from the cramped station quarters to the office of the corporate psychiatrist who selected the crew. The hidden threat behind this unease isn't revealed until nearly the end, but the dark universe of the sea bottom and rich characterization captivate to the last page. Watts makes a brilliant debut with a novel that is part undersea adventure, part psychological thriller, and wholly original. Roberta Johnson
From Kirkus Reviews
Near/medium-future deep-sea endeavor, from a Toronto-resident newcomer. To tap the energy of ocean-floor hydrothermal vents, the powerful Grid Authority sets up a power station in the Juan de Fuca Rift west of Seattle. Humans, physically modified to be able to live and work underwater without the restrictions of diving equipment, will maintain the facility. Of these volunteers (sex criminals, psychopaths, wife-beaters, and child molesters: their alternative is brainwashing), some cant adapt to the crushing, claustrophobic environment. Others brim with suppressed violence. Gerry Fischer takes to eating the local wildlife and never returns to the station. Lenie Clarke suspects that all the members of the group have been deliberately mentally damaged so they won't want to leave. But the Rifters develop a telepathic awareness of each other's thoughts and feelings. On the surface, meanwhile, smart gelsjelly-like intelligent neural networksrun most of the equipment and are slated to replace the Rifters, who refuse to return to the surface. The Grid Authority learns that the Rifters, and all deep-water life-forms, harbor an archaic non-DNA microorganism, ehemoth, that would destroy all DNA-based life if it reached land. At the same time, Lenie discovers on the ocean floor a nuclear bomb operated by a smart gel; it will trigger a devastating earthquake should ehemoth escape. Problem is, nobody at the Grid Authority understands how the smart gels evaluate information. What if the gels prefer ehemoth to orthodox life-forms? Plenty of first-novel flawspoor organization, drifting points of view, an inconsistently applied, tough-to-read present-tense narrativebut fizzing with ideas, and glued together with dark psychological tensions: an exciting debut. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"Gritty action and realistic science...a dark and vivid world." --David Brin
"The dark universe of the sea bottom and the rich characterization captivate to the last page. Watts makes a brilliant debut with a novel that is part undersea adventure, part psychological thriller, and wholly original." --Booklist (starred review)
"A very impressive book, highly original in its setting and unusually ingenious." --Brian Stableford
"Peter Watts delivers--solid, inventive hard SF about the deep sea, but as we've never seen before. This moves like the wind." --Gregory Benford
"Peter Watts bathes a gonzo, hopeless pessimism reminiscent of Philip K. Dick or Joanna Russ in the cold, edgy light of hard science fiction à la Benford, Bear, or Tiptree. In Starfish, Watts creates in his protagonist a poetry of dysfunction which is angry and eerily redemptive, and which makes compelling, almost compulsive reading." --Candas Jane Dorsey
"I read Starfish in several large gulps. The story drives like a futuristic locomotive. It's a hypnotic read, somber and compelling. Best thing I've read in a long time. Peter Watts is an author to watch for." --Robert Sheckley
Review
"Gritty action and realistic science...a dark and vivid world." --David Brin
"The dark universe of the sea bottom and the rich characterization captivate to the last page. Watts makes a brilliant debut with a novel that is part undersea adventure, part psychological thriller, and wholly original." --Booklist (starred review)
"A very impressive book, highly original in its setting and unusually ingenious." --Brian Stableford
"Peter Watts delivers--solid, inventive hard SF about the deep sea, but as we've never seen before. This moves like the wind." --Gregory Benford
"Peter Watts bathes a gonzo, hopeless pessimism reminiscent of Philip K. Dick or Joanna Russ in the cold, edgy light of hard science fiction à la Benford, Bear, or Tiptree. In Starfish, Watts creates in his protagonist a poetry of dysfunction which is angry and eerily redemptive, and which makes compelling, almost compulsive reading." --Candas Jane Dorsey
"I read Starfish in several large gulps. The story drives like a futuristic locomotive. It's a hypnotic read, somber and compelling. Best thing I've read in a long time. Peter Watts is an author to watch for." --Robert Sheckley
Book Description
A huge international corporation has developed a facility along the Juan de Fuca Ridge at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to exploit geothermal power. They send a bio-engineered crew--people who have been altered to withstand the pressure and breathe the seawater--down to live and work in this weird, fertile undersea darkness.
Unfortunately the only people suitable for long-term employment in these experimental power stations are crazy, some of them in unpleasant ways. How many of them can survive, or will be allowed to survive, while worldwide disaster approaches from below?
From the Publisher
"Peter Watts delivers--solid, inventive hard SF about the deep sea, but as we've never seen before. This moves like the wind." --Gregory Benford, author of Cosm "Peter Watts bathes a gonzo, hopeless pessimism reminiscent of Philip K. Dick or Joanna Russ in the cold, edgy light of hard science fiction a la Benford, Bear, or Tiptree. In Starfish, Watts creates in his protagonist a poetry of dysfunction which is angry and eerily redemptive, and which makes compelling, almost compulsive reading." --Candas Jane Dorsey "I read Starfish in several large gulps. The story drives like a futuristic locomotive. It's a hypnotic read, somber and compelling. Best thing I've read in a long time. Peter Watts is an author to watch for." --Robert Sheckley "The dark universe of the sea bottom and the rich characterization captivate to the last page. Watts makes a brilliant debut with a novel that is part undersea adventure, part psychological thriller, and wholly original." --Booklist "With gritty action and realistic science, Peter Watts brings to life a dark and vivid world." --David Brin
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