[.ca] Starfish (ISBN 0765315963)

From Amazon.com:
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

Realistic near-future sci-fi:
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.

Fascinating....:
Starfish delivers a captivating tale. I find it a plausible glimpse into our not so distant future. I was intrigued as well as a bit terrified of Watts depiction of human beings bio engineered to live on the ocean floor. Terrified, because I placed myself within the characters shoes and I struggled to determine how I would retain my sanity constantly hearing the overwhelming pressure of the hand of the ocean trying to crush my undersea habitat and swimming in total darkness with monsters attracted by the slightest amount of light. Watts covered all bases by coming up with a believable explanation of how people could face these undersea dangers and still remain "sane". Add to that not one but two world ending threats as a cliffhanger and you have the makings of a great book. I loved it. Euftis Emery Author of Off the Chain

Fascinating main female character & supporting cast.:
I admit it. I pulled it off the shelf based on the cover art. What's under the cover is a fantastic read, filled with characters that are twisted, but somehow sympathetic. They are the unwanted of society, doing a job no one else wants. But, what to do with them once the job is over.... This book explores the characters that mind the underwater rift, a big vent in the deep sea. They have all been modified to live and work under the intense pressure of the ocean. With time, some of them feel more comfortable in the cool embrace of the water than with their own kind, with one even "going native." Lenie Clarke is the main protaganist, and she is likable, despite her many faults. You just feel for her when she's lying on the ocean floor, falling asleep alone in the dark rather than going back to the dismal station environment. No one in the "Company" anticipated the profound impact this environment would have on these outcasts from society. It's really a fast read with compelling dialogue and motivations. An excellent read. Take it to a beach or poolside. It works well next to water. :)

Dark, Misanthropic, and highly Nihilistic, one of the best.:
I've never read a book quite like this. No author has been able to write out a fiction book that caught my eye quite like this one. The pain and sorrow is sort of over-rated in books, they give the books no taste, and throw them off a bit, but this book is quite a bit better than that. Expressing dark, misanthropic, and nihilistic themes is all this author is about, and I love every minute of it.

Certainly earns the title speculative fiction:
The characterization in Starfish is sparse, almost reducing people to their respective dysfunctions. It's an interesting take, especially when the rifters fall into relationships based on their histories and their damaged psyches, knowing full well the consequences but are somehow unable to stop themselves. The book ponders what it means to be human, and at what point we cease to be human, but leaves the final decision up to the reader. A lot of the story focuses on how the rift slowly changes the "rifters" who live and work down there. Some of them lose what semblance of humanity they once had, going wild and leaving the rift to survive in the depths of the ocean. Which, of course, brings up questions about the nature of humanity and whether these people were better off before or after the rift changed them. There were some unanswered questions left at the end of the book, but as this is the first of three books, I'm assuming most of these are explored in future volumes. The setup at the end gives a nice transition to the next book, with an equal sense of doom and intrigue. (Actually, that's probably the best way to describe the mood throughout the entire story.) The viewpoints changed frequently, and some of the narrating characters were otherwise very minor. It always confuses me when an author does this, since I want to be reading about someone I care about, not Joe Schmoe who popped in and asked the protagonist if she wanted a hamburger two chapters previous. As a general rule, a lot of head hopping doesn't open up the story, it dilutes it. Even with the dilution, though, this was a powerful book, and I was driven to keep going until I could turn the last page. This is the first book Peter Watts published, but he manages to skip most of the "new writer" issues. It'll be interesting to see where he takes the consecutive books, and I think I may have to find out.