Peter Watts Rifter Trilogy

Watts Rifter Trilogy are some of the finest science fiction novels I have read in a while. I have followed each volume with the next in the series without a break. The story keeps your attention and keeps you coming back for more.

Starfish is the first in the series and depicts a time in future where corporate interests control the world and deep water vents are being harnessed for energy. Humans are unable to survive at these depths so people are generically, mechanically, and psychologically altered to prepare them for these extreme environments.

Malelstrom is the second in the series.  Malelstrom is actually the name given to their “Internet”. In some aspects Malelstrom is much more than our Internet. It would be very hard to conceive of Malelstrom’s nature at this time. If you have read any of the “Sprawl” series by William Gibson, another trilogy, by the way, Malelstrom approaches the idea of Cyberspace, which is mentioned and alluded to in sprawl series, and other work of Gibson’s. Malelstrom is a resource, but also a source of what we call malware today, however in the Rifter Trilogy it so much more. Software evolves and some of what evolves is not healthy to be around.

ßehemoth is the last in the series and like the other volumes in this series it is full of grit. ßehemoth tells of a post-apocalyptic America. The first two novels of this trilogy had their dark moments, but ßehemoth has more than its share of grit and these dark moments. A good novel should provoke you and this volume has done that on multiple occasions.

ßehemoth is a microbe from an oceans deep sea trench that is brought back to civilization by the Antagonist, Lene Clark.  ßehemoth competes with the established microbes and is superior to other live giving microbes. People start to die in masses.

ßehemoth, first mentioned in Malelstrom tells of North America being decimated with the onslaught of ßehemoth. Now a new microbe has been introduced to kill ßehemoth. Factions from around the world are coping with the possible of genocide in their own countries and are doing what they can to contain the virus and to impede it from reaching their shores.