I should read his long form stuff, I don't do anywhere near enough long form reading these days. I read "Malak" in Engineering Infinity years ago and it's very good indeed.
No one has ever made me feel horror and despair like Peter Watts. His books stare directly into the abyss. I think it's what makes the hope you feel at the end seem earned.
If you haven't read his work but you spend time thinking about HCI, you should.
I see people differently after reading Blindsight; The picture is much darker, concretely more accurate, with what light is there geared to all hell and so much brighter. I'm better for it and at a greater peace.
If you like his work, you can donate to “The Niblet Memorial Kibble Fund”. I did after reading Blindsight, and received a friendly thank you email from him afterwards because so few people do.
I need to give this a re-read. I really enjoyed my Blindsight re-read recently. But Starfish and Maelstrom after it are such uhh, not to pun to hard but, such high pressure intense sci-fi stories. Amazing ambiance, creeping horror, in such incredible backdrops.
Watts just kept going with his universe. It was and is so good. Such an incredible reflection of the world at the time of writing, and I've found it's lost so little of it's capturance. That it gets so many of the plights of the over-civilized world, and the perils lurking in the economic and governmental an attention systems of the planet. From the old site (https://www.rifters.com/attic.htm) to the new site (https://www.rifters.com/), Watts just really, across mediums, wanted to get his world out, to show it's timelines. Incredible.
Starfish is where it all started, and I remember it as both a slow burn, but also so hard core, so real. In a world both so our own but so far away, so separated (insert follow up deep joke here), but still within the world, still immersed (pun!) in the Earth of the story. Maelstrom, the second book, is also incredible, in very different ways. Watts reflected on Maelstrom 18 months ago, and it captures some of the amazing titular sceneage, of an overrun net, a howling wasteland from accelerated technological adversarialism. Incredible book. He goes to talk more to his own background, biology, but upon re-reading it, I think of LLMs, of the GPU milleniums burned recently, doing not that far askance competitive training, forcing our own gradient descents in ever increasing numbers upon the world. Thanks Peter; your visions are cherished.
https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=11220
Recently finished the Starfish quadrilogy and adored it as well. One thing I particularly like is how this theme of evolutionary pressure applies to everyone alike; characters, software, ideologies, neural nets.
Also Watts manages to conjure this feeling of future shock I've only previously felt with Charles Stross' work.
The whole Rifters trilogy (quadrilogy?) is amazing, Starfish is actually my least favourite of the Rifters' books but still really good.
The villain Achilles Desjardins (I don't think he shows up in Starfish? been some time since I read it) is possibly one of the most villainous and sociopath characters I've ever read in a book.
I should read his long form stuff, I don't do anywhere near enough long form reading these days. I read "Malak" in Engineering Infinity years ago and it's very good indeed.
No one has ever made me feel horror and despair like Peter Watts. His books stare directly into the abyss. I think it's what makes the hope you feel at the end seem earned.
If you haven't read his work but you spend time thinking about HCI, you should.
I see people differently after reading Blindsight; The picture is much darker, concretely more accurate, with what light is there geared to all hell and so much brighter. I'm better for it and at a greater peace.
Have not read this series (yet), but Watt's Blindsight is an absolute masterclass in literary sci-fi
Starfish ... It's very good bit also very hard on the reader very devastating
If you like his work, you can donate to “The Niblet Memorial Kibble Fund”. I did after reading Blindsight, and received a friendly thank you email from him afterwards because so few people do.
I've read blindsight and echopraxia, but not starfish, so thanks for the reminder.
If starfish is even despairing than blindsight and echopraxia, then this should be "fun"!
I need to give this a re-read. I really enjoyed my Blindsight re-read recently. But Starfish and Maelstrom after it are such uhh, not to pun to hard but, such high pressure intense sci-fi stories. Amazing ambiance, creeping horror, in such incredible backdrops.
Watts just kept going with his universe. It was and is so good. Such an incredible reflection of the world at the time of writing, and I've found it's lost so little of it's capturance. That it gets so many of the plights of the over-civilized world, and the perils lurking in the economic and governmental an attention systems of the planet. From the old site (https://www.rifters.com/attic.htm) to the new site (https://www.rifters.com/), Watts just really, across mediums, wanted to get his world out, to show it's timelines. Incredible.
Starfish is where it all started, and I remember it as both a slow burn, but also so hard core, so real. In a world both so our own but so far away, so separated (insert follow up deep joke here), but still within the world, still immersed (pun!) in the Earth of the story. Maelstrom, the second book, is also incredible, in very different ways. Watts reflected on Maelstrom 18 months ago, and it captures some of the amazing titular sceneage, of an overrun net, a howling wasteland from accelerated technological adversarialism. Incredible book. He goes to talk more to his own background, biology, but upon re-reading it, I think of LLMs, of the GPU milleniums burned recently, doing not that far askance competitive training, forcing our own gradient descents in ever increasing numbers upon the world. Thanks Peter; your visions are cherished. https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=11220
Recently finished the Starfish quadrilogy and adored it as well. One thing I particularly like is how this theme of evolutionary pressure applies to everyone alike; characters, software, ideologies, neural nets.
Also Watts manages to conjure this feeling of future shock I've only previously felt with Charles Stross' work.
The whole Rifters trilogy (quadrilogy?) is amazing, Starfish is actually my least favourite of the Rifters' books but still really good.
The villain Achilles Desjardins (I don't think he shows up in Starfish? been some time since I read it) is possibly one of the most villainous and sociopath characters I've ever read in a book.
His Sunflowers series is great too. Maybe my favorite (after Blindsight, of course).
Read for free on his webite: https://www.rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_TheIsland.pdf
Or collected in The Freeze-Frame Revolution here: https://www.amazon.com/Freeze-Frame-Revolution-Peter-Watts-e...
Not to be confused with "Chocolate Starfish", completely different genre.