彼得·瓦
作者介绍
Peter Watts
中文名：彼得·瓦
Peter Watts is a Canadian science fiction author and marine-mammal biologist.
His first novel Starfish (2000) introduced Lenie Clarke, a deep-ocean power-station worker physically altered for underwater living and the main character in the sequels: Maelstrom (2001), Behemoth: β-Max (2004) and Behemoth: Seppuku (2005). The last two volumes comprise one novel, published split in two for commercial considerations. Starfish, Maelstrom and Behemoth comprise a trilogy usually referred to as "Rifters" after the modified humans designed to work in deep-ocean environments.
His latest book, Blindsight, was released in October 2006 and was nominated for a Hugo Award. The novel has been described by Charles Stross thus: "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." Watts is currently writing two novels: Sunflowers and State of Grace, a "sidequel" about what happened on Earth during Blindsight.
Watts has made his novels and some short fiction available on his website under Creative Commons licence. 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."
In addition to his novels and short stories, Watts has also worked in other media. He was the Supervising Writer on 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 little 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".
Bibliography
Novels
- Rifters Trilogy
- Starfish (1999) (available online)
- Maelstrom (2001) (available online)
- Behemoth: β-Max and Seppuku (2004/2005) (available online)
- Blindsight (2006) (available online)
Collections
- Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes (2000)
Short stories
- A Niche (Tesseracts, 1990)
- Nimbus (On Spec Magazine, 1994)
- Flesh Made Word (Prairie Fire Magazine, 1994)
- Fractals (On Spec Magazine, 1995)
- Bethlehem (Tesseracts 5, 1996)
- The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald (Divine Realms, 1998)
- Home (On Spec Magazine, 1999)
- Bulk Food (On Spec Magazine, 2000) with Laurie Channer
- Ambassador (Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes, 2001)
- A Word for Heathens (ReVisions, 2004)
- Mayfly (Tesseracts 9, 2005) with Derryl Murphy
- Repeating the Past (Nature Magazine, 2007)
- The Eyes of God (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume 2, 2008)
- The Island (The New Space Opera 2, 2009)
- The Things (Clarkesworld Magazine, 1/2010)
Awards
The novel Blindsight was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel of 2007 (official announcement) and was longlisted (on the preliminary ballot) for the Nebula Award in January 2008 (preliminary ballot).
His short story "A Niche" tied with "Breaking Ball" by Michael Skeet for the Aurora Award in 1992.
Detention by US border guards
On 8 December 2009, Dr. Watts was detained at the US/Canadian border by American border guards performing a reportedly random search of the rental vehicle he was driving as he was attempting to re-enter Canada after helping a friend move to Vermont. Watts is alleged to have assaulted a Customs Officer and was turned over to local authorities to face charges. He was subsequently released, but remains charged with assaulting an officer by the St. Clair County Prosecutor's office . According to a border patrol 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.
Watts' report on the incident, published in his blog, has gone viral on the internet and the matter has since become somewhat controversial.