Rating: 
Summary: How's your tolerance for misanthropy?
Review: One of the bleakest views of humanity I've read in a while. Watts compares humanity (not just the pre-adapted rifters) to organic computers and to an ancient biochemistry from the ocean floor, and humanity comes out lacking. All life runs on pure conditioned reflex in Watts' world. The prose does an excellent job of describing life near a volcanic rift. The science is well-supported in most places, but sketchy in others, such as the speed-learning that turns a pedophile into a competent deep ocean engineer. The complete lack of *hope* in this book is what I found most off-putting about this book.
Rating: 
Summary: A Brave New World
Review: Peter Watts Will Blow us away for years to come. I am looking forward to his next book. I picked up this book from Amazon.com last month. When it arrived I started to read it that night, and I was unable to put it down. I was up all night, and did not put it down till I finished it. He made the characters come alive, almost like I knew them.
Rating: 
Summary: A Fascinatingly Dark and Gritty Vision of a World!!!
Review: Peter Watts, being a newcomer to the world of science fiction writing, dives right in with Starfish. He has created a creepily realistic world with dark, deep, and fascinating characters. Starfish tells the story of a group of people with different and equally disturbing pasts that are genetically engineered to sustain the pressure of ocean waters 3000 meters under the Pacific and to breathe the sea water. They are sent down together into this dark and dismal world for a year to "work" for a geothermal energy company. Let's just say that things aren't perfect. This is a creepy and equally wonderful tale! I loved it! This is definately worth the read, I highly recommend it! Enjoy! -Taylor
Rating: 
Summary: Tedious until the satisfying finale.
Review: Prepare for hard sustained effort to read through the first three quarters of the book. Tedious and slow. However, Watts does create a detailed realistic underwater world throughout. The final section of the book is where the action, what there is of it, commences and leads to a fascinating conclusion. The final section demands a sequel. In fact, this entire book could be considered a long prequel to a potentially more satisfying and exciting second novel.
Rating:
Summary: the great below
Review: take a normal human baby. beat it up and abuse it in its childhood. take out its left lung and replace it with a water breating apperatus. and send it too the most unstable trenchs in the pacific. there you'll find the rifters. engineering and maintenance of the east coasts most important power sources. this is a deeply psychological and sci-fi novel about the goings about on the beebee station near the channer vent. attacks from giant deep see fish. underwater steam jet ruptures. mental breakdowns. and a weird adaption that gives them a sort of esp. but when the company calls to pull them out. they choose to stay.
Rating:
Summary: Realistic near-future sci-fi
Review: The potential reader should have already gathered from the other reviews that this is not the book for you if you want some feel-good escapist fiction. In case you haven't, let me repeat the point. _Starfish_ is a lot of things, but uplifting isn't one of them. It's a disturbing realistic look that plays on the notion of what we reap when we create survivors. Someone said here that the book features a world where criminals are sent to the bottom of the sea to work-- but the criminality of the people is incidental. The conceit of the book is that all of these people are survivors of horrific abuse, and as such have developed the ability to live in environments that are less than nurturing. In the end, that ability to survive is exactly what works against the government that can no longer control its project. What's good about the book?
The diction is crisp and the writing style is clean and biting. The characters and politics underwater are well-formed and believable. It avoids unnecessary drama while still keeping the reader's interest. Whý not five stars, then?
The plotting (particularly around Behemoth) feels a little bit like a first novel. I was much less interested in the Great Threat To Humanity than I was in the lesser issues. I'd also argue that it is hard to keep unrelenting bleakness from feeling a bit flat at times-- a little bit of sweetness by way of contrast now and again would have gone a long way. Despite any reservations, I'll definitely read the next book in the series & will look forward to doing so.
Rating:
Summary: I can't wait for more Peter Watts
Review: This book is one of the most engrossing stories I have ever read. I did not want to get up even to eat because this book had me that far in its control. Its almost like a dream, with great detail, you are in this story. I would almost be afraid to read another book by this author because I find it hard to believe that he would be able to top this. Though this is only his first novel, he already is near the top of my science fiction author list, with William Gibson and Robert Anton Wilson.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: This is a book that I picked up by chance. Once again, the cover art was what caught my eye. AS well as the teaser on the panel. "Psychotic" people under the ocean! Mystifying. I decided to give it a shot. I had nothing to loose. Instantly I was glad I chose it. It started out slow in the Prologue, but as soon as the page turned something new and more mysterious appeared. I loved how Watts described the mental splits and cracks that laid out everything perfectly. Beebe's dreariness added to the affect that the crew were outcasts of society. The author added another element- The cruelty of the GA. And the crew's utter hatred for the "mechanic." Every little detail seemed to fit in at one time or another. This book is fabulous and captivated me from the start. I'm sure that all you out there will take my advice and read this book. Nothing will slip by you. Nothing.
Rating:
Summary: Candy for the Mind
Review: This is the most enjoyable sci-fi book I have read in the last ten years. I like my SF hard, with exciting stories based on solid science. This book has a few weak pillars, but on the whole it's solidly constructed. It's a wonderful romp through such great subjects as deep-sea exploration, deep-seated pscyhological trauma, the evolution of life, frontiers of artificial life and AI, and the future of the Internet. All of it told in the context of believable characters and compelling events. Starfish is a first book, and it shows. The viewpoint shifts in some strange ways. The story-telling is heavy handed, with the author frequently telling when he should be showing. The book loses focus toward the end, and the finale is pure Buck Rogers -- you ain't seen nothing yet, and please make a down payment on the sequel now in progress. But these faults are easily compensated by the intellectual delight and compelling drama of this book. Watts is clearly a gifted writer, and I for one will willing plunk down my dollars for his future books. I just *know* he's got five stars in him!
Rating:
Summary: 2 great Marine sci-fi books in 1999! Heaven!
Review: Two great new science fiction books with marine themes in 1999, both first books by interesting authors. What an embarassment of riches! "Starfish" is not like "Typhon's Children" the other marine flavored sci-fi book of 1999. It's darker, deeper, and set much closer to home. The protagonists are not likeable or even particulary sane. The villains (mostly off-stage) are human and aren't really villians, just scared and faced with rotten choices, or so inhuman that evil isn't even in the vocabulary. But after all, that's arguably what makes great sci-fi. Off the west coast of North America is a rich source of hydrothermal energy. To tap it takes people who can adapt and be adapted to the cold, dark, pressure of the deep. You'd have to be crazy to want to be there. So they use crazy people. They adapt too well. Being the first in a new environment, and the first of a new breed of person can be hazardous. Sometimes things just don't work out the way planners plan. Two books in 1999 that give Clarke's "Deep Range" a run for the best marine sci-fi of all time! Can we get 3 in 2000?
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