Peter Watts - Beyond the Rift

Down in the basement, my anger never goes away; and that’s informative in a way you might not expect, because I don’t believe true misanthropes generally feel that way. Bitter, sure. Cynical, deeply. But angry?

You may not think much of tapeworms, but you don’t generally get mad at them. You might wipe cancer off the face of the earth if you could, but not because the thought of cancer leaves you spluttering with rage. You don’t blame something for doing what it does, what it’s always done, what you expect it to do.

You only get mad if you expected better.

Apparently my writing spells misanthrope to a fair number of readers. It’s my anger, I think, that puts the lie to that label. It winds through so much of my fiction: in the collapsing civilization of the Rifters trilogy, in the Island’s betrayal of Sunday’s faith, in an anonymous ambassador’s paradigm-shifting realization that back-stabbing is just the way we do things out here. You wouldn’t find it in the work of a true misanthrope; such a person would just wrinkle his nose, shrug, turn away with contemptuous indifference. Well, of course. What did you expect?

It’s why I can’t pull off convincing villains. It’s why I got out of that car back in 2009 even though everyone knows the rules, even though we’ve all heard the stories: Don’t fuck with those assholes at the border, don’t even make eye contact with them. You should hear what happened to me last year…

It’s because down in my gut, I still can’t quite believe that villains do exist. No matter what I’ve read and heard, I just can’t believe that you could get shit-kicked for asking a simple, reasonable question.

Most of the time, of course, I’m dead wrong. And so I get angry, because I expected better. I still expect better, even now. And in what might be charitably characterized as an ongoing act of noblest stupidity, I continue to act as if people were better, in worlds both fictional and real.

You know what that makes me, by definition?

An optimist.

The Rifters Trilogy

Starfish (1999)

Maelstrom (2001)

βehemoth (2004) (Published in two volumes as βehemoth: β-Max and βehemoth: Seppuku )

Blindsight (2006)

Crysis: Legion (2011)

Echopraxia (forthcoming 2014)

Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes (2002)

“Fizzing with ideas, and glued together with dark psychological tensions: an exciting debut.”

“Watts makes a brilliant debut with a novel that is part undersea adventure, part psychological thriller, and wholly original.”

“No one has taken this premise to such pitiless lengths—and depths— as Watts.”

“Intellectually challenging….”

“Watts continues to challenge readers with his imaginative plots and superb storytelling.”

“A brilliant piece of work, one that will delight fans of hard science fiction, but will also demonstrate to literary fans that contemporary science fiction is dynamic and fascinating literature that demands to be read.”

“The Things” copyright © 2010 by Peter Watts. First appeared in Clarkesworld #40, January 2010.

“The Island” copyright © 2009 by Peter Watts. First appeared in The New Space Opera 2 , edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan (HarperCollins: New York).

“The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald” copyright © 1998 by Peter Watts. First appeared in Divine Realms: Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy , edited by Susan MacGregor (Turnstone Press: Winnipeg, Canada).

“A Word for Heathens” copyright © 2004 by Peter Watts. First appeared in ReVisions , edited by Julie E. Czerneda and Isaac Szpindel (DAW: New York).

“Home” copyright © 2000 by Peter Watts. First appeared in On Spec #36, Spring 1999, Vol. 11 No. 1.

“The Eyes of God” copyright © 2008 by Peter Watts. First appeared in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume 2 , edited by George Mann (Solaris: Nottingham, England).

“Flesh Made Word” copyright © 1994 by Peter Watts. First appeared in Prairie Fire Magazine Vol. 15, #2.

“Nimbus” copyright © 1994 by Peter Watts. First appeared in On Spec #17, Summer 1994, Vol. 6 No. 2.

“Mayfly” copyright © 2005 by Peter Watts and Derryl Murphy. First appeared in Tesseracts Nine: New Canadian Science Fiction , edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Ryman (EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy: Calgary, Canada).

“Ambassador” copyright © 2002 by Peter Watts. First appeared in Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes (EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing: Calgary, Canada).

“Hillcrest v. Velikovsky” copyright © 2008 by Peter Watts. First appeared in Nature #454, 550, July 23, 2008.

“Repeating the Past” copyright © 2007 by Peter Watts. First appeared in Nature #450, 760, November 28, 2007.

“A Niche” copyright © 1990 by Peter Watts. First appeared in Tesseracts 3 , edited by Candas Jane Dorsey and Gerry Truscott (Porcépic Books: Victoria, British Columbia).

Beyond the Rift

Copyright © 2013 by Peter Watts

This is a work of collected fiction.

All events portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form without the express permission of the author and the publisher.

“Outtro: En Route to Dystopia with the Angry Optimist” copyright © 2013 by Peter Watts

Cover art “Undersea” copyright © 2013 by Hugh Sicotte

Cover and interior design by Elizabeth Story

Tachyon Publications

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San Francisco, CA 94107

(415) 285-5615

www.tachyonpublications.com

tachyon@tachyonpublications.com

Series Editor: Jacob Weisman

Project Editor: Jill Roberts

BOOK ISBN 13: 978-1-61696-125-1

Printed in the United States of America by Worzalla

First Edition: November 2013

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1Waber, R. L., Shiv, B., Carmon, Z. & Ariely, D. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 299, 1016-1017 (2008).

1 Deathbird Stories , if you must know.

2Actually, that’s not quite true; my next novel centers around the existence of an omnipotent, miracle-performing god, and the very smart folks who study it. But I can assure you that the god of Echopraxia is far removed from your run-of-the-mill scripture-based deity.

3In more recent years—back before I was banned outright from entering your fine country—I just decided to have fun with it and list “masturbation” as one of my Professional Activities. In such cases it’s generally a good idea to show up at least four hours before departure.

4Canada’s equivalent of the CIA, albeit with an annual budget of about $43.26. Known primarily for pulling into traffic after forgetting the briefcase full of national secrets they’d just parked on the roof of their shiny black sedan while unlocking the driver’s door.