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Title details for Beyond the Rift by Peter Watts - Available

Beyond the Rift

by Peter Watts
ebook
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Combining complex science with skillfully executed prose, these edgy, award-winning tales explore the shifting border between the known and the alien. The beauty and peril of technology and the passion and penalties of conviction merge in narratives that are by turns dark, satiric, and introspective. Among these bold storylines: 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 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; and 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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 12, 2013

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781616961268

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781616961268
      • File size: 277 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 18, 2013
      Self-proclaimed angry optimist Watts offers 13 disquieting tales of science fiction, constructing worlds of alienation and horrific transformation from the building blocks of cutting-edge science. Beginning with “The Things,” a lauded re-examination of a classic horror film from the monster’s point of view, Watts shows why he’s become known as “The Guy Who Writes the Depressing Stories.” Watts’s highly reductionist, determinist worldview provides visions of blindly expansionist colonialism (“The Things,” “The Island”), disquieting contact with nigh-godlike beings (“Nimbus,” “The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald”), religion and science combined to form an engine of atrocity (“A Word for Heathens”), and first contact as a parable about self-interest (“Ambassador”). While the occasional piece takes a more optimistic bent (“Mayfly”), Watts is drawn to gloomier conclusions like a moth to the flame. Though some readers will struggle to read more than a few stories at a time, there can be no denying Watts’s skills as a writer.

    • Library Journal

      December 1, 2013

      From the award-winning author of the Rifters trilogy (Starfish; Maelstrom; Behemoth) comes a collection that demonstrates Watts's skill with short fiction. In addition to the Hugo Award-winning "The Island," the Prix Aurora Award-winning "A Niche," and the Shirley Jackson Award-winning "The Things," the volume also includes a metaphysical puzzle story about life after death ("The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald") and eight other evocative tales. VERDICT This is a good choice for fans of the author or those who appreciate a good sf short story.

      Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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