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: Watts' Debut Novel an Incredible Read
Review: _Starfish_ was a great book! The day my order arrived in the mail, I sat down to start reading and I did not get up until the book was done. Peter Watts does a great job here of setting up a believable group of misfits, biologically enhanced so they can survive underwater and at great depths. Through some trial-and-error, it is discovered that only those who have some sort of mental imbalance can survive in such a hostile atmosphere. Coupled with the marvelous descriptions of the weird and grotesque life forms which thrive in the deep, this novel really creates a grim, believable portrait of the world. About the only drawback I noted was the conclusion, which, ironically, one of the other reviewers holds up as the book's high point. I'm looking forward to more thoughtful science fiction from Mr. Watts.
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