Most Popular Books by Peter Watts

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.

A follow-up to the Hugo Award-nominated Blindsight, Echopraxia is set in a 22nd-century world transformed by scientific evangelicals, supernatural beings and ghosts, where defunct biologist Daniel Brüks becomes trapped on a spaceship destined to make an evolutionary-changing discovery.

“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.

Physically modified convicts are used in the Pacific for the exploitation of ocean-floor resources without diving equipment. But in the process they have become carriers of a microorganism that could wipe out humanity if they return to the surface.

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.

February 13, 2082, First Contact. Sixty-two thousand objects of unknown origin plunge into Earth''s atmosphere – a perfect grid of falling stars screaming across the radio spectrum as they burn. Not even ashes reach the ground. Three hundred and sixty degrees of global surveillance: something just took a snapshot. And then... nothing. But from deep space, whispers. Something out there talks – but not to us. Two ships, Theseus and the Crown of Thorns, are launched to discover the origin of Earth''s visitation, one bound for the outer dark of the Kuiper Belt, the other for the heart of the Solar System. Their crews can barely be called human, what they will face certainly can''t. ''A tour de force, redefining the First Contact story for good.'' Charles Stross. ''If you only read one science fiction novel this year, make it this one!... it puts the whole of the rest of the genre in the shade... It deserves to walk away with the Clarke, the Hugo, the Nebula, the BSFA, and pretty much any other genre award for which it''s eligible. It''s off the scale... F**king awesome!'' Richard Morgan. ''State-of-the-art science fiction: smart, dark and it grabs you by the throat from page one'' Neal Ascher.

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.

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.

In this collection of short stories from best-selling author Peter Watts, enter strange new worlds that defy the imagination. Journey to the depths of the ocean floor with genetically engineered human beings ... push the boundaries of life with a scientist obsessed with death ... and watch as sentient gaseous entities offer destruction and salvation to the human race. Nine stories make up this stunning new collection from a rising talent in the field of Science Fiction.

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.

The European Astrobiology Institute presents 54 SF Stories and Science Essays on life, from microbial to macro, from automatic to sagacious. Each story is followed by an essay illuminating the scientific underpinnings of the story.

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. . . .

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.

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.

Hiding out with her fellow cyborgs and their surviving creators for five years, Lenie Clarke is horrified when they are discovered by the doomsday microbe Behemoth, a situation that forces Lenie to take responsibility for her role in billions of deaths.

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 ...

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.

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.

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 (modified to work in the rift valleys of the ocean floor) have hidden in the mountains of the deep Atlantic. The facility they commandeered was more than a secret station on the ocean floor. Atlantis 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.

Award winners. Award finalists. Hidden gems. All Canadian. All in one anthology. Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction: Volume One showcases the powerful, award-winning fantastical fiction being written by Canadians today. Discover the magic woven by more than three dozen of Canada’s finest established and emerging fantasy and science fiction writers, including Premee Mohamed, Peter Watts, Kate Heartfield, Ai Jiang, Eric Choi, and Suzan Palumbo, among others. From hard science fiction that propels you through the cosmos to haunting fantasy that lingers in the recesses of your imagination, join these writers as they explore the wonderous, the contemporary, the futuristic, and what it means to be human—all through the lens of the fantastic. Curated by award-winning author and anthologist Stephen Kotowych, and selected from top markets like Analog, F&SF, Lightspeed, On Spec, Strange Horizons, and Tor.com, the Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction is your definitive guide to the very best fantastical fiction written by Canadians today. Featuring stories and poems that were winners and finalists for the Aurora Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, Ignyte Award, Prix Solaris, World Fantasy Award, the Rhysling Award, and many more.

Starfish lit the fuse. Maelstrom was the explosion. But five years into the aftermath, things aren''t quite so simple as they once seemed... Lenie Clarke--rifter, avenger, amphibious deep-sea cyborg--has destroyed the world. Once exploited for her psychological addiction to dangerous environments, she emerged in the wake of a nuclear blast to serve up vendetta from the ocean floor. The horror she unleashed--an ancient, apocalyptic microbe called ßehemoth--has been free in the world for half a decade now, devouring the biosphere from the bottom up. North America lies in ruins beneath the thumb of an omnipotent psychopath. Digital monsters have taken Clarke''s name, wreaking havoc throughout the decimated remnants of something that was once called Internet. Governments have fallen across the globe; warlords and suicide cults rise from the ashes, pledging fealty to the Meltdown Madonna. All because five years ago, Lenie Clarke had a score to settle. But she has learned something in the meantime: she destroyed the world for a fallacy. Now, cowering at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, rifters and the technoindustrial "corpses" who created them hide from a world in its death throes. But they cannot hide forever: something is tracking them, down amongst the lightless cliffs and trenches of the Midatlantic Ridge. The consequences of past acts reach inexorably towards the very bottom of the world, and Lenie Clarke must finally 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 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: ß-Max is the first of two volumes. The story will conclude in ßehemoth: Seppuku. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Published under the joint sponsorship of the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Labour Organization and the World Health Organization, and produced within the framework of the Inter-organization Programme for the Sound Management of Chemicals (IOMC). On cover: IPCS International Programme on Chemical Safety

Based on a highly popular, well-established course taught by the authors, Stochastic Processes: An Introduction, Second Edition discusses the modeling and analysis of random experiments using the theory of probability. It focuses on the way in which the results or outcomes of experiments vary and evolve over time. The text begins with a review of relevant fundamental probability. It then covers several basic gambling problems, random walks, and Markov chains. The authors go on to develop random processes continuous in time, including Poisson, birth and death processes, and general population models. While focusing on queues, they present an extended discussion on the analysis of associated stationary processes. The book also explores reliability and other random processes, such as branching processes, martingales, and a simple epidemic. The appendix contains key mathematical results for reference. Ideal for a one-semester course on stochastic processes, this concise, updated textbook makes the material accessible to students by avoiding specialized applications and instead highlighting simple applications and examples. The associated website contains Mathematica® and R programs that offer flexibility in creating graphs and performing computations.

Chloroform is a clear, colourless, volatile liquid which is used in the production of refrigerants and as a fluoropolymer feedstock. It may be released into the environment from chlorodifluoromethane plants and from pulp and paper mills using chlorine-based chemicals for bleaching and disinfection purposes. Chloroform is also the principal by-product of water disinfectant processes. It is estimated that the vast majority of chloroform emissions into the environment are natural in origin. This publication, part of a series from the International Programme on Chemical Safety, evaluates the risk to human health and the environment posed by exposures to chloroform.

N.B. This is a supplement to the 2001 edition. It has been previously incorrectly been advertized as the 18th or 19th edition.