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
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.
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.
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.
Years ago I read the entirety of Starfish on the gloriously Geocities-ass website linked here, and I highly recommend it. Even as someone who has a hard time keeping focus, it sucked me in.
These are the books I read when I feel like I'm too optimistic about world affairs. The dark themes that seem so close to being possible help boost my cynicism and level me out.
> This is awkward and a little creepy. They tell me I have to do it for promotional purposes, but I've already got a blog. I've already got a website. Being told that setting up an author page on fcuking Amazon is essential to success? A company that treats us all like such goddamn children it doesn't even allow us to correctly spell an epithet with a venerable history going back 900 years or more? That just sucks the one-eyed purple trouser eel.
>
> Also the bio information above is fucked. For example, my work has only appeared in 36 BoY collections, not 350; the noms and awards info is out of date too, but apparently it was all written by some publishing house and I can't change it from this interface.
>
> Still, here I am. But if you're really all that interested, go check out my actual blog/website. Google is not your friend (any more than Amazon is), but at least it'll point you in the right direction.
>
> I'm the one on the left, by the way.
Hell yeah brother.
Wonder when it was written and what it would say if written today.
> A company that treats us all like such goddamn children it doesn't even allow us to correctly spell an epithet with a venerable history going back 900 years or more?
Watts is truly remarkable. I also recommend the Sunflowers series, just a brilliant conceit w.r.t humans in deep time plus a sound understanding of dealing with ASI.
Wikipedia has it down as:
The chronological order within the Sunflower universe is: "Hotshot", The Freeze-Frame Revolution, "Giants", "Hitchhiker", "Strategic Retreat", "Remora", "Outtake", "The Island".
Just realizing I didnt see that list before I there are a few I haven't read.. brb
His Rifters books had some interesting tech in them that I want to see in the real world (for positive uses): dirigibles using vaccuum for buoancy rather than hydrogen or helium, and abiotic food production ala the "Calvin Cyclers" he has in the book. Abiotic food production using only minerals, water, and air as inputs would be tremendously helpful for space colonization and also for scarcity scenarios on earth, like living in the arctic, at sea, or in the desert.
One of the sequels "Maelstrom" has some incredibly prescient descriptions of the Internet as this overwhelming useless medium that was taken over by bots and ai...back when llms started to take off and post everywhere I'd always think back to this book. Great author
23 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 152 ms ] threadWatts 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
If you haven't read his work but you spend time thinking about HCI, you should.
If starfish is even despairing than blindsight and echopraxia, then this should be "fun"!
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.
Blindsight in particular will also blow your mind.
It'd say Starfish is a great read but it doesn't quite get to mind blowing.
They will, however, drain your trust in humanity to deeply negative levels.
> https://www.amazon.com.au/stores/author/B001H6Q2TE/about
> This is awkward and a little creepy. They tell me I have to do it for promotional purposes, but I've already got a blog. I've already got a website. Being told that setting up an author page on fcuking Amazon is essential to success? A company that treats us all like such goddamn children it doesn't even allow us to correctly spell an epithet with a venerable history going back 900 years or more? That just sucks the one-eyed purple trouser eel.
>
> Also the bio information above is fucked. For example, my work has only appeared in 36 BoY collections, not 350; the noms and awards info is out of date too, but apparently it was all written by some publishing house and I can't change it from this interface.
>
> Still, here I am. But if you're really all that interested, go check out my actual blog/website. Google is not your friend (any more than Amazon is), but at least it'll point you in the right direction.
>
> I'm the one on the left, by the way.
Hell yeah brother.
Wonder when it was written and what it would say if written today.
This meant what?
Wikipedia has it down as:
The chronological order within the Sunflower universe is: "Hotshot", The Freeze-Frame Revolution, "Giants", "Hitchhiker", "Strategic Retreat", "Remora", "Outtake", "The Island".
Just realizing I didnt see that list before I there are a few I haven't read.. brb
TRIGGER WARNINGS APPLY
The Rifters series, which has some spectacular images and conceits, is also author-insert misogynist sadism gratification-porn.
Didn't have to be that way. Shame that it was as IMO it renders the series and indeed Watts un-recommendable.