Science fiction award-winner, flesh-eating-bacteria survivor, and somewhat questionably convicted felon Peter Watts returns with his long-awaited short fiction collection. Including an unpublished work, Watts posits unlimited brain-computer interfaces, the possibility of life existing inside stars, the hacking of human behavior, and ecological collapse. Also, the healing power of revenge.
"Peter Watts: Never cheerful. Always brilliant."
-John Scalzi, author of the Old Man's War series
What if a weaponized water supply reprograms pattern recognition in the brain, provoking violent rage at the sight of the Google logo. Or an accidental hive mind creates a global agenda to resurrect itself in the scant seconds between its emergence and dissolution? A steroidal jump gate-building ship attempts to survive passage through a red-giant sun by hiding inside an ice-giant planet. When something is trying to colonize the sun, humans try to stop it. (Spoiler alert: Nobody comes off very well.)
In his newest short fiction, alongside an introduction by Richard K. Morgan, Watts (The Freeze-Frame Revolution) reserves whatever hope he has for whatever comes after humans. Peter Watts is a former marine biologist, flesh-eating-bacteria survivor, and convicted felon (in the U.S. at least, although these days, who isn't?) whose novels-despite an unhealthy focus on space vampires-have become required texts for university courses ranging from philosophy to neuropsychology. His debut novel Starfish was a New York Times Notable Book. His work has been translated into twenty-four languages, has appeared in thirty-six best-of-year anthologies, and has been nominated for sixty awards, winning twenty-three, including the Hugo, the Shirley Jackson, and the Seiun Awards. Watts lives in Toronto with fantasy author Caitlin Sweet.
• Skillfully combining complex science with finely executed prose, these edgy sciece fiction tales explore the always-shifting border between the known and the alien.
• Watts is an expert marine biologist who consults on science fiction such as Naomi Alderman's The Power
• National marketing plan to include coverage in leading and horror-specific outlets, targeted print/digital ARC distribution, and author appearances and events
Introduction: "Desert Prophet Wanted" by Richard K. Morgan
"Gut Feelings"
"The Twenty-One Second God"
"Contracting Iris"
"Defective"
"Giants"
"Test 4 Echo"
"ZeroS"
"Critical Mass"
"The Colonel"
"The Wisdom of Crowds"
"Game Theory"
Advance Praise for Fold Catastrophes
"Peter Watts: Never cheerful. Always brilliant."
-John Scalzi, author of the Old Man's War series
"Fold Catastrophes is a fully autonomous delivery system for eleven supersaturated scientific truth-bombs, precision-tooled by one of the sharpest thinkers in modern SF."
-Alastair Reynolds, author of Halcyon Years
"Fold Catastrophes is fascinating and frightening in equal measure. This is science fiction with an edge as dark and sharp as an obsidian blade, written as if by the flickering light of a data center burning in a wasteland of its own creation."
-Robert Charles Wilson, author of Spin
"Peter Watts's fiction weaves the human soul into dark glittering tapestries, studded with black holes and exploding stars. They compel you while challenging all your assumptions. Fold Catastrophes will have readers gasping for breath-both in awe, and from its straight-up gut punch to the emotions."
-L.X. Beckett, author of Dealbreaker
Praise for Peter Watts
"If science fiction can really be claimed as a literature of ideas, then Watts is without doubt its premier practitioner."
-Richard Morgan, author of Altered Carbon
"A new book from crazy genius Watts is always cause for celebration . . . Watts is one of those writers who gets into your brain and remains lodged there like an angry, s
