Peter Watts (author)

Career

His first novel Starfish (1999) reintroduced Lenie Clarke from his 1990 short story, "A Niche"; Clarke is a deep-ocean power station worker physically altered for underwater living and the main character in the sequels: Maelstrom (2001), βehemoth: β-Max (2004) and βehemoth: Seppuku (2005). The last two volumes comprise one novel, but published split for commercial considerations. Starfish, Maelstrom and βehemoth comprise a trilogy usually referred to as "Rifters" after the modified humans designed to work in deep-ocean environments.

His novel Blindsight, released in October 2006, was nominated for a Hugo Award. The novel has been described by Charles Stross as follows: "Imagine a neurobiology-obsessed version of Greg Egan writing a first contact with aliens story from the point of view of a zombie posthuman crewman aboard a starship captained by a vampire, with not dying as the boobie prize." Echopraxia (2014) is a "sidequel" about events happening on Earth and elsewhere concurrent with the events in Blindsight.

Watts has made some of his novels and short fiction available on his website under Creative Commons license. He believes that doing so has "actually saved [his] career outright, by rescuing Blindsight from the oblivion to which it would have otherwise been doomed. The week after [he] started giving Blindsight away, sales tripled."

In addition to his novels and short stories, Watts has also worked in other media. He was peripherally involved in the early stages of the animated science fiction film and television project Strange Frame. He also worked briefly with Relic Entertainment on one of the early drafts of the story that would eventually, years later, become Homeworld 2. However, the draft Watts worked on bears no resemblance to the one used for the released game. More recently, he has been recruited by Crytek as a writer and art consultant on Crysis 2. Technological elements from Blindsight have been referenced in the fictional Crysis 2 "Nanosuit Brochure".

The creative director of BioShock 2 has cited Watts's work as an influence on that game.

Personal life

Watts obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in 1980 and a Master of Science degree in 1983, both from the University of Guelph, Ontario. He obtained his Ph.D from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC from the Department of Zoology and Resource Ecology in 1991.

In December 2009, Watts was detained at the US/Canada border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) performing a reportedly random search of the rental vehicle he was driving. Watts is alleged to have assaulted a CBP Officer and was turned over to local authorities to face charges. According to an officer, the authorities used pepper spray to subdue Watts after Watts became aggressive toward officers. According to Watts, he was assaulted, punched in the face, pepper-sprayed and thrown in jail for the night. The officer later admitted in court that he had punched Watts. A jury found Watts guilty of obstructing a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. He faced a maximum sentence of two years in prison. Watts blogged about his sentence saying that because of how the law was written, his asking: "What is the problem?" was enough to convict him of non-compliance. In April 2010 he was given a suspended sentence, and a fine. However, due to immigration laws, Watts' felony conviction prevents him from re-entering the United States.

In February 2011, he contracted the rare disease necrotizing fasciitis in his leg, which he has blogged about on his website.

He married fellow Canadian author Caitlin Sweet in August 2011.

"The Things"

"The Island"

Blindsight

Starfish

"A Niche"