A couple of years ago, I read Peter Watts’ Blindsight and discovered a new favorite science-fiction author. It was the story of a first-contact with alien life situation, with the Earth sending a small ship filled with broken people out to the edge of the solar system to learn about this alien race. It was also very hard s/f, with a lot of ideas about biological systems – not only were the aliens very alien, but the humans sent out to deal with them had been heavily modified, too.
Then last December, I was lucky enough to enjoy a few beers with Peter in a Toronto pub. He was great fun to talk with, and he even showed us the current state of his leg, post-operation for the flesh-eating bacteria problem he famously had a couple of years ago. Gnarly good fun.
Now I’m going through some of his earlier works. His first novel, Starfish, is also about highly damaged people in a high-stress situation (the bottom of the ocean in this case), dealing with bizarre life forms (thermophiles that grow along deep-sea vents).
And I’m reading his collection of short stories called Beyond the Rift, which so far has also been good fun.
Note: Most (all?) of Peter’s stuff is available on his website with a Creative Commons License, so you can read it for free. I doubt any of my publishers would be so accommodating, but I think it is a great idea. The problem for most authors in this world is exposure, so getting the word out is far more important than a couple of dollars of royalties (and for most authors, royalties really are just a couple of dollars). Once you’ve realized how good Peter’s stuff is, you’ll probably be happy to buy a few copies.
Peter’s new book, Echopraxia (a sequel to Blindsight), is coming out in August. Yay.
