This is the 14th and final short story collection that I've read in 2018. There were a lot of great stories in here, and I'd actually thought that I'd given it my highest rating, but it's actually my third-highest, with a 4.54 that I'll round up to 5 stars.

The Things : 4 Stars
The Island : 4.5
The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald : 5
A Word for Heathens : 5
Home : 5
The Eyes of God : 5
Flesh Made Word : 5
Nimbus : 3
Mayfly (with Derryl Murphy) : 5
Ambassador : 3
Hillcrest v. Velikovsky : 5
Repeating the Past : 5
A Niche : 4.5 ( )

I both listened to the audio version and read the story afterwards as part of the 2010 Best Science Fiction anthology. I thought the concept of the enormous alien organism was interesting enough to merit two stars all by itself, but I did not resonate with either of the main characters in this story. And the revelation at the end at what was going on felt to me like it came out of nowhere - I could not see how this was reasoned or intuited out. ( )

Disclaimer: I'm not reading the entire collection but I am reading Watts' The Island. It's the only one I'm reviewing at the moment.

This novella won the Hugo back in '10 and it's not hard to see why. Hard-hard SF with an almost Star Trekie feel...
If the ship's computer was a sociopathic company man despite the fact they'd traveled 65 million years in the future to pull a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on a humungous super-intelligent alien creature.

Watts, as usual, is creative, fascinating, and disturbing all at once. :)

This continues the ongoing Sunflower series of stories, taking place after Freeze Frame Revolution.

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Beyond the Rift by Peter Watts is a collection of science fiction short stories. I appreciate what Watts said in the final selection: "But in a very real sense, these are not my inventions; they are essential features of any plausible vision of the future. The thing that distinguishes science fiction, after all—what sets it apart from magic realism and horror and the rest of speculative horde—is that it is fiction based on science. It has to be at least semiplausible in its extrapolations from here to there." (Location 3979) That is what I've always enjoyed about hard science fiction - that it has an underpinning based on real science. An author might be speculating what will happen far into the future, but the foundation is always based on real science.

Contents of Beyond the Rift include:

The Things: Watts says The Things is "fan fiction, an homage to one of my favorite movies and also—to my own surprise—a rumination on the missionary impulse." This is a strong opening to the collection and immediately recognizable as a tribute piece from an alternate point of view.

The Island: Although he says it "started out as a raspberry blown at all those lazy-ass writers who fall back on stargates to deal with the distance issue" the result was an intriguing tale dealing with artificial intelligence and a genetically modified/created human, as well as interpersonal relationships between the "mother"and "son," humans traveling long distances in space in stasis, and a "diaphanous life-form big enough to envelop a star."

In The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald "Jasmine Fitzgerald guts her husband like a fish, but only to save his life." Is she truly insane?

A Word for Heathens deals with religious zealotry.

Home is very good. Check out the link to read it. www.rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_Home.pdf

In The Eyes of God a computer makes judgements and sentences a person based on the crimes that may be committed. Watts "asks whether we should define a monster by its impulses, or its actions."

In Flesh Made Word a man spends his life researching the last thoughts of people before they die. Watts comments that "the emo and overwrought “Flesh Made Word” has not aged well."

Nimbus features clouds that are alive and taking their revenge. Watts writes that it was started by "an off-the-cuff fantasy seeded by a former girlfriend who looked out the window one day and said, Wow, those thunderclouds almost look alive."He later admits that "the idea of a vast, slow intelligence in the clouds has a certain Old Testament beauty to it." This is a wonderfully imaginative and frightening story.

Mayfly (with Derryl Murphy) is set far in the future where a couple agrees to have a child whose brain is replaced, programed, and hard wired into an artificial intelligence matrix. This is an incredibly vivid, provocative and disconcerting story.

In Ambassador an AI spaceship is sent out to make contact with alien life forms and discovers that even if it means well, perhaps nothing else it encounters may share that sentiment.

Hillcrest v. Velikovsky features a trial asking if the placebo effect really works, or, in others words, can faith can overcome illness?

Repeating the Past: "The nameless narrator of “Repeating the Past” deliberately induces PTSD in his grandson, but only to save his soul."

In A Niche, two woman are part of a research team that is required to live under close quarters underwater. While one is able to adapt, the other is not

In the final selection, Outtro: En Route to Dystopia with The Angry Optimist, Watts addresses his reputation as "The Guy Who Writes The Depressing Stories." Watts say that his "favorite thumbnail of that sentiment comes from James Nicoll—'Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts'." He explains that while his "writing tends toward the dystopic it’s not because I’m in love with dystopias; it’s because reality has forced dystopia upon me." But he also finds things to wonder about and the sublime in his stories. This last part is where Watts addresses the distressing story of his arrest and abuse by U.S. border guards and the subsequent trial.

I really enjoyed Beyond the Rift. It was provocative and extremely well written. This is one of those collections that I think benefits from reflection after each story, and most of the stories will cry out for rereading in the future. Excellent collection - Very Highly Recommended.

Quotes:
You can read many of the short stories here: www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm

This is what the world taught me: that adaptation is provocation. Adaptation is incitement to violence. Location 133

Killing a virus is no sin. You can do it with an utterly clear conscience. Maybe she’s redefining the nature of her act. Maybe that’s how she manages to live with herself these days. Location 1225

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Tachyon Publications via Netgalley for review purposes.


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Dark collection of stories.

The Things
As the title promises, this is a replay of the standard "The Thing" scenario - a group of scientists working at a Polar base, find something long buried, which then awakens and goes on the rampage and must be stopped to save the world. The twist here is the nature of the "thing", hinted at in the title. A brilliantly inventive re-imagining of a tired cliche.

The Island
The dysfunctional crew in charge of a generation spaceship extending a star-gate network come across a lifeform so unusual that it must be unique...but there is a problem. Another characteristically dark, edgy and imaginative story from this author.

The second coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald
A man has been brutally murdered by his partner. The councillor assigned the case begins to believe otherwise...

A word for heathens
A devout warrior is tested...

Home
A long lost drone returns, but is it home? Bleak.

The eyes of God
Evil has gone but so has freedom....

Flesh made word
A researcher tries to recreate a lost child via a simulation...

Nimbus
The Earth finally turns on humanity...

Mayfly (with Derryl Murphy)
Parents and their child live in different time streams...

Ambassador
A lone drone runs from an unknown race hunting it... but the roles can be reversed...

Hillcrest versus Velikovsky
A sceptic is on trial for breaking the faith of a believer...

Repeating the past
Very grim tale about learning from history....

A niche
Rifters settng, one of the shift members seems to 'go' native in the deep sea

Outrro: En route to dystopia with the angry optimist
The author on why his work is not dark and an encounter with US Border Guards... ( )