A huge international corporation has developed a facility along the Juan de Fuca Ridge at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to exploit geothermal power. They send a bio-engineered crew—people who have been altered to withstand the pressure and breathe the seawater—down to live and work in this weird, fertile undersea darkness.
Unfortunately the only people suitable for long-term employment in these experimental power stations are crazy, some of them in unpleasant ways. How many of them can survive, or will be allowed to survive, while worldwide disaster approaches from below?
I wasn't sure what this novel wanted to be. It starts out with a character study of our protagonist, Lenie Clarke, as she adjusts to her surgically altered body and living on the ocean floor near a hydrothermal vent. Then it starts to turn into a bit of a soap opera as other damaged individuals are sent down to Beebe Station to work alongside her. Their personalities clash, people pair up, they argue over their treatment by "drybacks" with their jobs playing a background role. Finally, about 70% of the way through, the plot (the "worldwide disaster" referred to in the blurb) takes shape from a collection of scientific reports covering synthetic minds and ancient life.
Watts throws different POVs at us throughout the novel to advance the story. Unlike Clarke, who's there from beginning to end, these other characters come and go. I was surprised at first when the next character POV was introduced one-sixth of the way into the book. Thinking that he was going to be the counterpoint or pivotal in his relationship to Clarke, I was equally surprised when he was shuffled into the background at the one-third point. At first, I wondered what the point was in even having him in the first place, but reasons later revealed themselves in the story. And some of these other characters revealed elements of the overall story that Clarke wasn't privy to.
Can't say that I liked the post-climax ending. While I knew when I started this book that there were other books in the series, there was just a bit too much that was left unresolved. Viewed as a standalone, I don't believe it works. If Starfish is intended to be about Clarke's personal growth as she comes to work through the issues of her past (she's an abuse survivor), then I suppose that the worldwide disaster could be considered secondary. But her recovery is put on the backburner for the last third of the book while the plot is developed. Her dynamic change near the end is just too sudden. It almost seems like an afterthought. "Hmmm, gonna need more books to get the plot resolved. Better give Clarke an epiphany so I can end this phase of her story."
Still, I liked that Watts tackled several subjects and roped them together. Despite being twenty years old, the ideas presented here are still fresh. The real world internet could still wind up like the one postulated here. His radical approach to AI is untested and plausible. And given his background in biology, much of that aspect of the book is quite believable. The world-building is great. The descriptions of living at the bottom of the ocean splendid. Yes, it's a bleak story with little offered in the way of hope. Maybe that works for you; maybe it doesn't. If anything, it does a good job humanizing those whom society deems incorrigible or expendable.
3.5 stars.
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DED
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