Starfish

Rifters Trilogy Series, Book 1

By: Peter Watts

Narrated by: Gabriel Vaughan

Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

A huge international corporation has developed a facility along the Juan de Fuca Ridge at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to exploit geothermal power. They send a bio-engineered crew - people who have been altered to withstand the pressure and breathe the seawater - down to live and work in this weird, fertile undersea darkness.

Unfortunately, the only people suitable for longterm employment in these experimental power stations are crazy, some of them in unpleasant ways. How many of them can survive, or will be allowed to survive, while worldwide disaster approaches from below?

©1999 Peter Watts (P)2019 Tantor

Difficult to describe…

I didn’t want to like this story for multiple reasons. But I somehow liked it. The narration was awful, don’t wish to hear Gabriel Vaughan ever again, even in nightmares. I ended up reading it myself and let this play in the background of an empty drawer at work.

slow-building, well-crafted hard sci-fi

exceptionally well-researched, the author scientific background comes through. By embracing the most alien landscapes that are on our own planet and near-term technologies that will be realities in The xext century, an alien horrorscape that is far too real emerges. Through world-building and character development we come to sympathize with the radical weirdos and the criminals and see unchecked technological development as the enemy even though radial technological change is necessary for science-fiction to exist as a genre.

interesting story, not so much on the performance.

the story is compelling but it's like listening to a teacher at story time who's not really that into it.

What a ride…

As usual Watts delivers a winding tale that forces one way out of their comfort zone. In contrast to Blindsight the character development in Starfish, with its wonderful depth and at times distributing intimacy, would be my pick if I had to choose a stand out strength. Story arc, and pure originality being close second and third respectively. Looking forward to Echopraxia.

amazing book, glad it's available now

while the narrator doesn't capture what I expect of Clarke specifically, I'm so happy to have this book available as an audio book I'm more than happy to have expectations challenged. great scifi,amazing book. This one would be hard for any narrator who hasn't read and absorbed the whole thing from the start.

Watts is phenomenal, great narration too!

Thoroughly enjoyable start to finish. watts is a master storyteller - no better biologically accurate sci fi

Rough narration

Gabriel has a solid speaking voice, and I don't agree with others that he sounds clinical. I think this is heavier handed hard scifi so it works for him to be a bit straight on delivery. Frankly I don't like too wide of emotion in narration, it just distracts me. The only thing a narrator should be is clear and concise first. If they can deliver solid performances and variability while also being crystal clear, great.

That leads me to why I give this 2 stars; too much volume variability. Gabriel isn't changing his voice much, but you can tell when he's talking through Brander and when he's talking through Lenie. And it is painful when he talks through her or anyone with a softer voice as Gabriel talks at 30-40% of his standard volume. I listen to these when I'm driving to supplement my own reading, and if I left the volume where his natural cadence sat, he would be impossible to hear when speaking as Lenie or a kid or whatever else. And it frustrated me basically the entire novel. I get that Lenie is a woman, but you don't have to drop to a quarter of your usual decibels. And frankly the mixing should have fixed this, I mean it came close to me asking for a refund at times and I don't know who to blame on it because of just how bad it is.

Some people may not agree, I mean when I do cardio I also listen to books, and I listened to this one once while running and it was totally fine because I don't have the background noise of a car going 60mph on the highway. And you could argue it's my car's noise suppression or lack thereof, but no other novel has given me this issue. It's squarely because Gabe is lowering his voice to raise his pitch, and the mixing did not bother to raise his volume to accommodate.

I don't really blame either of them. Gabe's in a hard place and the editor is in a hard place because Lenie is the main character. But I don't really care. It's not up to me to give concession, this is just my take.

An excellent story, but only half of it

EDIT: Despite being listed, Audible does not actually have the audio version of the next two books in the series. I also can't find them anywhere else. So given that Starfish isn't a complete story on its own, I can't really recommend it unless you have the time to switch to the text versions of the next two books in the series. (Get the audio version of Watts' book Blindsight instead. Its great.) The text versions of all of these books are available for free on the authors website.

This is an excellent SF story with novel ideas. It takes it's time, but doesn't seem slow. Which makes it feel all the worse when the audible sign off plays right after what feels like the end of the story's second act. Starfish is just the first part of a finished trilogy, and it has convinced me to get the next book in the series, so I guess that's a recommendation. Although if you are not generally intrigued by the premise, or aren't hooked after a few chapters then you might be better off dropping the book. It is unlikely to win you over further into the story.

The narrator is fantastic though. He may seem monotone at first but somehow that serves to almost hypnotically draw you in, only to realize he is actually very expressive, just in subtle ways. More than once I forgot I was listening to an audiobook just felt like I was daydreaming the story.

Not even close to Blind sight and Echopraxia

Not even close to Blind sight and Echopraxia.

I'm reviewing this after reading this whole series.
I loved blind sight and recently heard and read Echopraxia which was also amazing. I figured I'd look around at his other books. This book was good but not in the same class at all.

I would have told my earlier self to stop at Echopraxia given the chance unless you are really running out of amazing hard sci-fi.

The Book Cover is a Lie; This is Amazing

As always, Peter Watts leaves me battered and bruised with my brain standing on the edge of some cliff to how everything could end around me at any moment.

As usual, the author has a very cold and uncaring way of telling a story. If you're getting into this book, just assume there's a trigger warning for literally everything. So far, his books often focus on a team of neurodivergents and the trauma that brought them to their current state, right before explaining another way all life as we know it can easily end using realistic concepts and science. The theme is "Normies not allowed and life is excruciating".

The narrator, meanwhile, is perfectly mediocre. He has enough stamina to narrate the whole book for recording without sounding tired, but he has maybe 3 voices he can do for different characters, so of there's 4+ characters in a scene, then you need to really buckle down and catch any and all context that comes your way.

Additionally, some characters have written screams for dialogue, and the narrator represents this with a soft pronunciation of "aaaaaah" at a quiet speaking level. The other narrators I've heard so far would actually back up from the mic and give it their all. I feel like the narrator has a lot more potential that he can work on, because he absolutely shows that he has the endurance and the skills to continue growing. Maybe he's exceptional later in his career.

Now, for the book cover. It's a lie.

The ocean is the primary setting for this, and Peter Watts realistically depicts it as black and murky with no visibility at all. The book cover, conversely, takes a more Subnautica approach. Additionally, intelligent machines are a main idea in the story, but they apparently look like cubes of gel, but the book cover has an android for some reason. I understand that cover artists don't always have all the context, and many in this genre are fashioned from stock images, but let's be clear: This book is not shiny, and it's not wondrous. It is darker than night, it is cold, and it leaves you a little shaken sometimes. It is art designed to challenge certain readers.

Overall, absolutely fantastically-done, and I am reminded again why some people can't read too many Peter Watts books in a row.