Robin Marx's Writing Repository

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on November 16, 2013.

Starfish

By Peter Watts – Tor Books – July 1999

Review by Robin Marx

Starfish tells the story of the rifters, a group of misfits surgically altered and equipped to work deep undersea on a geothermal power plant. It takes a special breed to cope with the psychological extremes of such a habitat, and it turns out that those best suited to the environment are abuse survivors and sociopaths. The Juan de Fuca Ridge station ends up populated by an unusual crew that includes an incest victim, a wife beater, and even a serial child molester.

While the plot is fairly low-key for the first three quarters of the book, the setting and characters were so compelling that I raced through this book. Already set apart from the bulk of humanity by their violent and traumatic pasts, it was interesting to watch how the rifters, altered by both their implants and their living conditions, gradually became post-human. While some may find the characters unsympathetic and hard to relate to, those readers would be missing the point. They start off damaged humans and end up even more alien.

The climax was exciting and interesting, if a little cryptic in parts. This is the first book of a trilogy, and while I'm excited to see what happens next, I hope that even with the drastic changes introduced at the end of Starfish the series continues to stick with the deep sea setting.

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #ScienceFiction #Starfish #RiftersTrilogy #PeterWatts