- Hardcover: 317 pages
- Publisher: St Martin's Press (31 Dec 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312868553
- ISBN-13: 978-0312868550
- Product Dimensions: 21.7 x 14.5 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,961,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
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 g
"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 g
Product 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?
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?
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
WHEN the lights go out in Beebe Station, you can hear the metal groan. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
WHEN the lights go out in Beebe Station, you can hear the metal groan. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Not that I wasn't satisfied with it as it was. Believe what the author tells you - this book plays like an underwater Blade Runner. It's glum. There's no hope. Everything's dank and dreary and there's not one character you'd like to have as a close friend. I like that in a book - feels real, like a dysfunctional crew on an off-shore oil platform (at least they're not unionized, that would be worse).
Anyway, the best thing about this book is the science, particularly the author's in-depth speculation on "how to get a human to live several miles under water". Everyone's seen the Abyss. I'm sure the author was chuckling watching Bud Brigman descend the fathoms and still survive, even with that transluscent pink oxygenated flurocarbon swill in his lungs. That scene may have been the author's impetus. Or maybe Deep Star Six.
The pyranosal RNA thing, however....not too keen on that. Seems like the author was looking for an excuse to keep the deep-sea-ers down there, and the author pulled that from his nether regions. Doesn't matter.
Anyway - I wander. Great book. Good writing. Accurate science (I'm a biochemist). Compelling and scary characters. And there will be a sequel. There has to be. I look forward to it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this thinking I was going to be getting a throwaway, trashy sci-fi read for my holiday, but I was very wrong. It's a tremendous book that I found very difficult to put down. The ideas are fascinating and compelling and I read and enjoyed the following two books in the series with just as much pleasure.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've read over a thousand books, many of them sci-fi. I don't remember most of them but I'll never forget this one. The author creates a terrific feeling in the book with good characters and milieu. The most important aspects in a good book are just character depictions and good tension, not necessarily plot but I think this book had all of it. Highly recommended alongside Vernor Vinge's works.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Splendid atmosphere, sadly weak plot & linear narrative.
It took me a while to get into this book; the beginning is monotonous and lacks pace and plot but this, (I think) is intentional, allowing the author to construct a deeply dark &... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Willy Eckerslike
Worth buying twice
I read a friend's copy and had to buy it for myself. It's a marvellous book. The plot and setting are original and gripping and the characters are fleshed out and messed up to an... Read more
Published 20 months ago by AJ Handley
Inventive and worth reading, if you can put up with the shonky ending
Starfish explores a somewhat similar setting to his later novel Blindsight. The characters are even more dysfunctional and hateable than in the later novel, and the first three... Read more
Published on 28 Jun 2008 by D. R. Cantrell
Dark Cyberpunk!
If there were to be a film made of this novel it would start "in a world....blah blah".
Lennie Clarke is an abused, disaffected, sociopath with few redeeming qualities. Read more
Lennie Clarke is an abused, disaffected, sociopath with few redeeming qualities. Read more
Published on 8 Dec 2007 by Science Friction.
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