New Releases by Peter Watts

Terre. 2096. Une intelligence extraterrestre s’est manifestée au genre humain. Un premier contact sans suite : si le Thésée a été envoyé dans les tréfonds obscurs du nuage d’Oort en quête de réponses, les communications avec le vaisseau sont depuis perdues. Sur Terre, la situation tient du désastre : réchauffement climatique et effondrement de la biodiversité ont mis l’humanité à genoux. Mais quelle humanité ? Certains ont fui dans des paradis numériques, d’autres explorent de nouveaux états de conscience. Et puis il y a Daniel Brüks, humain non augmenté, vrai fossile vivant, exilé dans le désert d’Oregon pour en étudier la faune et la flore altérées. Brüks, embarqué malgré lui dans une équipée folle aux côtés d’un militaire inconsolable, d’une pilote vindicative, de moines bicaméraux et d’une vampire, monstruosité ramenée du fond des âges par le génie génétique. C’est le début d’une fuite éperdue jusqu’au cœur brûlant du Système solaire, là où ce qu’il reste de cette humanité fracturée pourrait bien faire face à l’impensable...

This ebundle includes: Blindsight, Echopraxia, and The Colonel. From Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell award-nominated author Peter Watts, Firefall is a far-future, science fiction saga of first contact with an alien species at the edge of the solar system–and of the evolution of humanity into a myriad of subspecies. Blindsight: Two months since the stars fell. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune''s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever''s out there isn''t talking to us. So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn''t wish to be met? You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won''t be needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there. Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they''ve been sent to find. Echopraxia: Daniel Bruks is a living fossil: a field biologist in a world where biology has turned computational, a cat''s-paw used by terrorists to kill thousands. Taking refuge in the Oregon desert, he''s turned his back on a humanity that shatters into strange new subspecies with every heartbeat. But he awakens one night to find himself trapped on a ship bound for the center of the solar system. Their pilgrimage brings Dan Bruks, the fossil man, face-to-face with the biggest evolutionary breakpoint since the origin of thought itself. The Colonel: Colonel Keaton is in trouble. His wife has retreated into a virtual heaven and his son remains missing after joining an extrasolar mission to track down an alien race. He is presently tasked by his superiors with the threat assessment of hived human intelligences, one of which successfully attacks a compound under his watch. Now, one of the strongest hive minds in the world approaches Keaton with an offer that could completely change his world. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Six jours avant qu’il n’y ait plus d’argent, Méduse se prit un bon coup de pied au cul d’Encelade. Les thermistances embarquées enregistrèrent un pic soudain — 80°, 90°, 120° —, que suivirent un soubresaut du fond marin et un violent choc latéral sur la sonde. Il y eut un flash lumineux. Un océan incroyablement bouillant. Un fond marin rocheux basculant comme une table renversée par un géant furieux. Le canal se tut. La télémétrie se propagea dans l’obscur océan alcalin. Des relais amarrés à la sous-croûte captèrent ces chuchotements, qu’ils amplifièrent et transmirent. Cent quatre-vingts kilomètres plus loin à l’horizon, Euryale — accrochée par en dessous à la glace comme une énorme balane métallique — sépara le signal du bruit et le fit remonter à Stheno par un câble qui traversait six kilomètres de croûte regelée. Les mains orientées en porte-voix vers l’horizon fracturé, Stheno cria en direction de la Terre. Peter Watts Test d’écho

This collection highlights 20 stellar space operas published over the past 20 years by top-notch authors of the science fiction genre. A soldier fights for survival behind enemy lines, on an alien vessel, thousands of light-years from Earth in "On the Orion Line," by Stephen Baxter. A man aboard a ship in deep space wakes up from biostasis at the wrong time in "The Days Between," by Allen M. Steele. An astronaut in a damaged balloon struggles to survive 800 meters above the surface of a sea on Titan in "Slow Life" by Michael Swanwick. Two rival space-faring cultures vie for influence over the people of a forgotten human world in "The Third Party," by David Moles. One thousand people, aboard five generation starships, leave the Sol system to flee an enemy that threatens to destroy their way of life in "Mayflower II," by Stephen Baxter. Modified combat troops must deal with recalcitrant settlers on a planet being attacked by hostile aliens in "Bright Red Star," by Bud Sparhawk. Programmed military doppelgängers continue to carry out their missions long after the Quiet War''s end in "Dead Men Walking," by Paul McAuley. Mathematicians seek to learn more from a civilization, on another planet, that spent three million years doing math in "Glory," by Greg Egan. Human diplomats must deal their own cultural biases while dealing with two representatives from warring factions on a newly discovered planet in "Saving Tiamaat," by Gwyneth Jones. Space pirates haul in booty aboard a living spaceship that doesn''t quite smell right in "Boojum," by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette. The constable in a settlement on a planet full of the tombs of a long-vanished alien race befriends a woman who researches dangerous hive rats in "City of the Dead," by Paul McAuley. A dying young man on a treasure hunt tries to save a world that''s devoid of gravity and lit by artificial suns in "The Hero," by Karl Schroeder. An eternal, aboard a slower than light ship, is woken to investigate an unexplained signal emanating from the area of the ship''s next stargate construction site in "The Island," by Peter Watts. An alienated teenager, in a domed iron city on a planet where a fundamentalist revolt is brewing, seeks to uncover her enigmatic tutor''s long-held secret in "The Ice Owl," by Carolyn Ives Gilman. A woman recalls a childhood train journey, on a planet with a permanent dayside and a nightside of eternal darkness, to see a captured specimen of the Nightmare race in "Weep for Day," by Indrapramit Das. Peculiar mating rituals and divergent evolution have developed on a lost colony that has been out of contact with the rest of humanity in "Someday," by James Patrick Kelly. An aristocrat''s trip to Venus, in search of her disgraced brother, is memorialized by papercuts of flora native to the planet in "Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathagan," by Ian McDonald. An enemy of the revolution, on a colonized planet, uploads a digital copy of himself into the body of a braindead boy in an attempt to escape off-world in "Jonas and the Fox" by Rich Larson. Set in the author''s Machineries of Empire universe, an undercover agent infiltrates a space station to recover the crew of a lost ship in "Extracurricular Activities," by Yoon Ha Lee. And finally, the captain of a dustship musters her crew to escape from a trap set by Hunter-Killers in a game of cat and mouse amid the rings of a giant planet in "By the Warmth of Their Calculus," by Tobias S. Buckell.

With over fifty unpredictable, scathing, hilarious, and more-than-occasionally moving essays about science, politics, family, pop culture, religion and more, Peter Watts — Hugo Award-winning author, former marine biologist, and “angry sentient tumor” (via Annalee Newitz, author of Autonomous) — shows why he is the savage dystopian optimist whom you can’t look away from ... even when you probably should. [STARRED REVIEW] “Irreverent, self-depreciating, profane, and funny, showcasing a Hunter S. Thompson–esque studied rage and dissatisfaction with the status quo combined with the readability and humor of John Scalzi.” —Booklist Which of the following is true? Peter Watts is banned from the U.S. Watts almost died from flesh-eating bacteria. A schizophrenic man living in Watts’s backyard almost set the house on fire. Watts was raised by Baptists who really sucked at giving presents. Peter Watts said to read this book. Or else. With Watts''s infamous penchant for blunt, honest, and deep reflection, these retrospective essays provide a view inside his head and even into his heart.

“This—THIS—is the cutting edge of science fiction.” —Richard K. Morgan, author of Altered Carbon How do you stage a mutiny when you''re only awake one day in a million? How do you conspire when your tiny handful of potential allies changes with each job shift? How do you engage an enemy that never sleeps, that sees through your eyes and hears through your ears, and relentlessly, honestly, only wants what''s best for you? Trapped aboard the starship Eriophora, Sunday Ahzmundin is about to discover the components of any successful revolution: conspiracy, code—and unavoidable casualties. Note from the publisher: The red letters in the print edition (highlighted letters in the e-book) indicate special bonus content.

Nous sommes les hommes des cavernes. Nous sommes les Anciens, les Progéniteurs, les singes qui érigent vos charpentes d’acier. Nous tissons vos toiles, construisons vos portails magiques, enfilons le chas de l’aiguille à soixante mille kilomètres/seconde. Pas question d’arrêter, ni même d’oser ralentir, de peur que la lumière de votre venue ne nous réduise en plasma. Tout cela pour que vous puissiez sauter d’une étoile à la suivante sans vous salir les pieds dans ces interstices de néant infinis...

An unabridged audio collection of the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2014 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “Marielena,” by Nina Allan, an immigrant is haunted by his past, as well as his present and future, in a disturbingly mean-spirited near-future England. A convicted serial killer is sentenced to “rightminding” to cure his neurological disorder that resulted in the sociopathic murdering of thirteen women in “Covenant,” by Elizabeth Bear. “The Magician and LaPlace’s Demon” by Tom Crosshill, follows a powerful AI that discovers the existence of magic and then prosecutes a vendetta against the magicians who grow more powerful as their numbers dwindle. In “Sadness,” by Timons Esaias, a man strikes back, as best he can, against the powerful aliens who conquered Earth long ago. In “Amicae Aeternum,” by Ellen Klages, a young girl shares her last morning on Earth with her girlfriend before boarding a generation starship. “Red Lights, and Rain,” by Gareth L. Powell, is a blend of sci-fi and vampire-hunting lore in which the vampires are made, not born. In “The Sarcophagus,” by Robert Reed, the maintenance cyborgs of the Great Ship encounter a stranded spacer in a derelict lifesuit from a long ago ship. “In Babelsberg,” by Alastair Reynolds, showcases a robot whose account of the dead colonists recently found on Titan are challenged by another AI. In “Passage of Earth,” by Michael Swanwick, a coroner gets a taste of the Earth invaders’ superior intelligence while dissecting a giant worm-like alien. Finally, in “The Colonel,” by Peter Watts, Colonel Moore tries to assess the capabilities of the hived human intelligences that have attacked a compound under his command.

Ich denke, also bin ich. Eines Tages werden rätselhafte Signale aus den Tiefen des Alls aufgefangen. Ein Erkundungsschiff wird losgeschickt, um der Sache auf den Grund zu gehen. Man hofft auf eine friedliche Begegnung mit den Außerirdischen, ist aber auch für andere Eventualitäten gerüstet. Doch dann stehen die Astronauten plötzlich einem Wesen gegenüber, so fremdartig, dass es mit menschlichen Maßstäben nicht zu fassen ist ...

Prepare for a different kind of singularity in Peter Watts'' Echopraxia, the follow-up to the Hugo-nominated novel Blindsight It''s the eve of the twenty-second century: a world where the dearly departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues; where genetically engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans and soldiers come with zombie switches that shut off self-awareness during combat. And it''s all under surveillance by an alien presence that refuses to show itself. Daniel Bruks is a living fossil: a field biologist in a world where biology has turned computational, a cat''s-paw used by terrorists to kill thousands. Taking refuge in the Oregon desert, he''s turned his back on a humanity that shatters into strange new subspecies with every heartbeat. But he awakens one night to find himself at the center of a storm that will turn all of history inside-out. Now he''s trapped on a ship bound for the center of the solar system. To his left is a grief-stricken soldier, obsessed by whispered messages from a dead son. To his right is a pilot who hasn''t yet found the man she''s sworn to kill on sight. A vampire and its entourage of zombie bodyguards lurk in the shadows behind. And dead ahead, a handful of rapture-stricken monks takes them all to a meeting with something they will only call "The Angels of the Asteroids." Their pilgrimage brings Dan Bruks, the fossil man, face-to-face with the biggest evolutionary breakpoint since the origin of thought itself. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In a world ravaged by the apocalyptic microbe ßehemoth, amphibious cyborg Lenie Clarke must confront the consequences of her past and the enemies that hunt her in the crushing depths of the ocean. Lenie Clarke—amphibious cyborg, Meltdown Madonna, agent of the Apocalypse—has grown sick to death of her own cowardice. For five years (since the events recounted in Maelstrom), she and her bionic brethren have hidden in the mountains of the deep Atlantic. Atlantis, the facility they commandeered, was more than a secret station on the ocean floor. It was an exit strategy for the corporate elite, a place where the world''s Movers and Shakers had hidden from the doomsday microbe ßehemoth—and from the hordes of the moved and the shaken left behind. For five years "rifters" and "corpses" have lived in a state of uneasy truce, united by fear of the outside world. But now that world closes in. An unknown enemy hunts them through the crushing darkness of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. ßehemoth—twisted, mutated, more virulent than ever—has found them already. The fragile armistice between the rifters and their one-time masters has exploded into all-out war, and not even the legendary Lenie Clarke can take back the body count. Billions have died since she loosed ßehemoth upon the world. Billions more are bound to. The whole biosphere came apart at the seams while Lenie Clarke hid at the bottom of the sea and did nothing. But now there is no place left to hide. The consequences of past acts reach inexorably to the very floor of the world, and Lenie Clarke must return to confront the mess she made. Redemption doesn''t come easy with the blood of a world on your hands. But even after five years in pitch-black purgatory, Lenie Clarke is still Lenie Clarke. There will be consequences for anyone who gets in her way—and worse ones, perhaps, if she succeeds... Behemoth: Seppuku concludes the final act (begun in ßehemoth: ß-Max) of Peter Watts''s chilling and powerful Rifters series. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

From the author of Blindsight comes Peter Watts''s sci-fi adventure story "The Colonel," an action-packed Tor.com Original Colonel Keaton is in trouble. His wife has retreated into a virtual heaven and his son remains missing after joining an extrasolar mission to track down an alien race. He is presently tasked by his superiors with the threat assessment of hived human intelligences, one of which successfully attacks a compound under his watch. Now, one of the strongest hive minds in the world approaches Keaton with an offer that could completely change his world. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Fantascienza - racconto lungo (25 pagine) - L''altra faccia della Cosa: la vicenda del grande classico rivisitata dal punto di vista dell''Alieno. Premio Shirley Jackson, finalista premio Hugo, Locus e Sturgeon Nel grande classico di John Wood Campbell jr La cosa, dal quale sono stati tratti ben tre film, abbiamo seguito la storia degli uomini della base nell''antartico che scoprono nei ghiacci una creatura aliena, un mostro, una cosa terrificante. Ma la storia può essere vista anche da un altro punto di vista. Quello di un viaggiatore dello spazio che dopo un incidente si risveglia circondato da esseri alieni che gli danno la caccia. Esseri che a loro volta, dal suo punto di vista, sono mostri, sono cose altrettanto terrificanti. Finalista a tutti i maggiori premi del settore e vincitore del premio Shirley Jackson per il suspense psicologico, un piccolo classico che non vi farà più vedere i mostri nello stesso modo. Canadese, classe 1958, Peter Watts ha vinto il premio Hugo nel 2010 col racconto L’isola, ma c''era già arrivato vicino nel 2006 col romanzo Blindsight. Biologo specializzato nei mammiferi marini, Watts ha sfruttato le sue conoscenze scientifiche nel romanzo con cui ha esordito, Starfish, al quale ha dato finora tre seguiti.

Skillfully combining complex science with finely executed prose, these edgy, award-winning tales explore the always-shifting border between the known and the alien. The beauty and peril of technology and the passion and penalties of conviction merge in stories that are by turns dark, satiric, bold, and introspective. A seemingly humanized monster from John Carpenter’s The Thing reveals the true villains in an Antarctic showdown. An artificial intelligence shields a biologically-enhanced prodigy from her overwhelmed parents. A deep-sea diver discovers that her true nature lies not within the confines of her mission but in the depths of her psyche. A court psychologist analyzes a psychotic graduate student who has learned to reprogram reality itself. A father tries to hold his broken family together in the wake of an ongoing assault by sentient rainstorms. Gorgeously saturnine and exceptionally powerful, these collected fictions are both intensely thought-provoking and impossible to forget.

An unabridged collection of the “best-of-the-best” science fiction stories published in 2010 by current and emerging masters of the genre. In “Under the Moons of Venus,” by Damien Broderick, a man, who has returned to a mostly deserted Earth from a terraformed Venus with Luna and Ganymede as moons, longs to go back to Venus. In “The Shipmaker,” the 2011 story winner of the British Science Fiction Association Award, by Aliette de Bodard, a maker of living spaceships has her career threatened by the birth of a sentient Mind that will come before the ship that will house it will be ready. In “Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain” by Yoon Ha Lee, a construct meets with an assassin that is the keeper of a gun that erases a victim’s entire lineage to secure the destruction of another gun made by the same gunsmith. In “Re-Crossing the Styx,” by Ian R. MacLeod, an entertainer aboard a cruise ship falls in love with a zombie husband’s Minder and schemes to free her from her marriage. In the steampunk story “Eight Miles,” by Sean McMullen, an English lord hires a balloonist to take him and a nonhuman female to a great height in order to learn the secrets of another world. In “Elegy for a Young Elk” by Hannu Rajaniemi, the gods use a real human to retrieve something important from a city that has become sentient and surrounded by a firewall that protects against gods. In “Alone” by Robert Reed, set in the author’s Marrowuniverse, a traveler aboard the Great Ship has eschewed contact and remained alone for far longer than seems possible. In the winner of the 2010 Asimov’s Readers’ Award for best novelette “The Emperor of Mars,” by Allen M. Steele, a contract worker on Mars becomes enamored with the science fiction retrieved from NASA’s Phoenix lander that arrived on the red planet back in 2008. In “A Letter from the Emperor,” by Steve Rasnic Tem, an imperial envoy visits an outlying colony where a retiring colonel, whose memory is suspect for security reasons, claims to have fought alongside the emperor. Finally, the 2010 Shirley Jackson Award winner for best short story, “The Things,” by Peter Watts, is a retelling of John Carpenter’s classic movie, The Thing, from the perspective of the shape-shifting alien confronting a group of scientists in Antarctica.

MANHATTAN IS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. THEY’RE NOT FROM AROUND HERE. Welcome to the Big Apple, son. Welcome to the city that never sleeps: invaded by monstrous fusions of meat and machinery, defended by a private army that makes Blackwater look like the Red Cross, ravaged by a disfiguring plague that gifts its victims with religious rapture while it eats them alive. You’ve been thrown into this meat grinder without warning, without preparation, without a clue. Your whole squad was mowed down the moment they stepped onto the battlefield. And the chorus of voices whispering in your head keeps saying that all of this is on you: that you and you alone might be able to turn the whole thing around if you only knew what the hell was going on. You’d like to help. Really you would. But it’s not just the aliens that are gunning for you. Your own kind hunts you as a traitor, and your job might be a bit easier if you didn’t have the sneaking suspicion they could be right. . . .

Lenie Clarke a survécu à l''explosion nucléaire qui a détruit la station des abysses dans laquelle elle travaillait. De retour sur la côte américaine, elle découvre les ravages du tsunami qui a laissé sans domicile des millions de gens. Parqués derrière un immense mur par les autorités militaires, ils sont maintenus sous contrôle grâce à des tranquillisants administrés à leur insu. Dans le chaos ambiant, personne ne remarque Lenie, personne ne sait quel danger elle représente : porteuse de la bactérie Behemoth, elle est susceptible d''anéantir la vie sur terre. Mais bientôt, la jeune femme est repérée par Maelström, cette entité pensante et indépendante qu''on appelait autrefois Internet...

A collection of the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2009 by current and emerging masters of the genre. In “Erosion,” by Ian Creasey, a man tests the limits of his exo-suit prior to leaving a dying Earth. In “As Women Fight,” by Sara Genge, a hunter, in a society of body-switchers, has no time to train for a fight to inhabit his wife’s body. In “A Story, with Beans,” by Steven Gould, the role of religion in a dystopian future plagued with metal-eating bugs is considered. In “Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance,” by John Kessel, a monk, in the far future, steals the only copy of a set of plays from a repressive regime and uses this loot to free his people. In “On the Human Plan,” by Jay Lake, a mysterious alien visits a far-future, dying Earth in search of the death of Death. Set in the Jackaroo sequence, “Crimes and Glory,” by Paul McAuley, a detective chases a thief to recover alien technology that both aliens and humanity are desperate to recover. Set in the Lovecraftian “Boojum” universe, “Mongoose” by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, a vermin hunter and his tentacled assistant come on board a space station to hunt toves and raths. In “Before My Last Breath,” by Robert Reed, a geologist discovers a strange fossil in a coal mine that leads to the discovery of a peculiar graveyard. In the Hugo Award winning novelette “The Island,” by Peter Watts, a woman on a spaceship must decide whether to place a stargate near an alien society that will ultimately destroy it. Finally, “This Peaceable Land; or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe,” by Robert Charles Wilson, is an alternate American Civil War history in which the war was never fought, slavery gradually disappeared, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin was never published.

Second in the Rifters Trilogy, Hugo Award-winning author Peter Watts'' Maelstrom is a terrifying explosion of cyberpunk noir. This is the way the world ends: A nuclear strike on a deep sea vent. The target was an ancient microbe—voracious enough to drive the whole biosphere to extinction—and a handful of amphibious humans called rifters who''d inadvertently released it from three billion years of solitary confinement. The resulting tsunami killed millions. It''s not as through there was a choice: saving the world excuses almost any degree of collateral damage. Unless, of course, you miss the target. Now North America''s west coast lies in ruins. Millions of refugees rally around a mythical figure mysteriously risen from the deep sea. A world already wobbling towards collapse barely notices the spread of one more blight along its shores. And buried in the seething fast-forward jungle that use to be called Internet, something vast and inhuman reaches out to a woman with empty white eyes and machinery in her chest. A woman driven by rage, and incubating Armageddon. Her name is Lenie Clarke. She''s a rifter. She''s not nearly as dead as everyone thinks. And the whole damn world is collateral damage as far as she''s concerned. . . . At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Hugo and Shirley Jackson award-winning Peter Watts stands on the cutting edge of hard SF with his acclaimed novel, Blindsight Two months since the stars fell... Two months of silence, while a world held its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune''s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever''s out there isn''t talking to us. It''s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route. So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn''t wish to be met? You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won''t be needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there. Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they''ve been sent to find. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Tetrachloroethene is used mainly in the dry cleaning of textiles, as a chemical intermediate and in metal degreasing. This report evaluates the available scientific literature on the health and environmental effects of tetrachloroethene based on selected national and regional evaluations. Of key interest is the relevance of several types of tumours included by tetrachloroethene in rats and mice. The report goes on to establish the criteria for setting tolerable intakes and concentrations taking into consideration the potential carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, kidney, liver, and reproductive/developmental toxicity and cancer. Environmental effects are assessed for terrestrial and aquatic organisms sediment-dwelling organisms and microorganisms in sewerage treatment processes. In addition, the risks of harm to plants from air emissions of tetrachloroethene are discussed. Uncertainties in the risk assessment are set out for both human health and the environment.