Peter Watts (author)
| Peter Watts | |
|---|---|
Peter Watts' acceptance speech at the 2010 Hugo Awards ceremony
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| Born | 25 January 1958 |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | |
| Period | 1990–present |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Notable works | Blindsight |
| Spouse | Caitlin Sweet |
| Website | |
| rifters |
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Peter Watts (born 1958) is a Canadian science fiction author and former marine-mammal biologist.
His first novel Starfish (1999) reintroduced Lenie Clarke from his 1990 short story, "A Niche"; Clarke is a deep-ocean power station worker physically altered for underwater living and the main character in the sequels: Maelstrom (2001), βehemoth: β-Max (2004) and βehemoth: Seppuku (2005). The last two volumes comprise one novel, but published split for commercial considerations.Starfish, Maelstrom and βehemoth comprise a trilogy usually referred to as "Rifters" after the modified humans designed to work in deep-ocean environments.
His novel Blindsight, released in October 2006, was nominated for a Hugo Award. The novel has been described by Charles Stross as follows: "Imagine a neurobiology-obsessed version of Greg Egan writing a first contact with aliens story from the point of view of a zombie posthuman crewman aboard a starship captained by a vampire, with not dying as the boobie prize."Echopraxia (2014) is a "sidequel" about events happening on Earth and elsewhere concurrent with the events in Blindsight.
Watts has made some of his novels and short fiction available on his website under Creative Commons license. He believes that doing so has "actually saved [his] career outright, by rescuing Blindsight from the oblivion to which it would have otherwise been doomed. The week after [he] started giving Blindsight away, sales tripled."
In addition to his novels and short stories, Watts has also worked in other media. He was peripherally involved in the early stages of the animated science fiction film and television project Strange Frame. He also worked briefly with Relic Entertainment on one of the early drafts of the story that would eventually, years later, become Homeworld 2. However, the draft Watts worked on bears no resemblance to the one used for the released game. More recently, he has been recruited by Crytek as a writer and art consultant on Crysis 2. Technological elements from Blindsight have been referenced in the fictional Crysis 2 "Nanosuit Brochure".
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