“Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts.”
— James Nicoll
Peter Watts is a Canadian science fiction author, blogger, and former marine biologist. His most notable work is probably Blindsight though the Rifters trilogy probably sold more copies. His writing tends to be diamond hard sci-fi with strong fatalistic overtones that usually touch on the technology's effect on the human condition.
Watt's writing style is quick and evocative, with a focus on what it is to be a person in a time and place. If I had to try and catigorize his style I would call it neuropunk. Watts spends an inordinate amount of time on evolutionary psychology, neurology, game theory and his stories often center around how a new piece of technology interacts with human nature and human motivations. The Rifter's trilogy focuses on somebody with a fair bit of PTSD and how that makes her less risk adverse. Blindsight features a protagonist with a hemispherectomy who's experienced significant depersonalization for most of his life. I can't think of a single story of his that has a well adjusted protagonist and in a way that's the pull; stories from the edge of the mind and technology.
When he's not writing Scifi he's blogging. It's largely connecting the ideas in his stories to the real world with special consideration given to questions of why people behave the way they do. When it's not about that it's interesting vignettes from his life and travel. This includes a brush with a flesh eating virus, being arrested by border guards at the USA/Canada border and subsequently banned from entering the USA, and stuff to do with his cats.
Many of Watts' stories are available on the web for free here and his blog can be found here.
IRON NODER X: XTREME XCELLENCE