Starfish
- 384
- Pages
- about 7 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Starfish” takes science fiction to the sea floor in a dark, tightly controlled novel. A corporation runs a geothermal station on the Pacific bed with a crew altered to breathe seawater and drawn from the only people who can stand the work: the mentally unstable. Some readers expected more action, others find it bleak and sparing with answers, and others again see it as groundwork for the “Rifters” trilogy.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
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? Starfish, the first installment in Peter Watts' Rifters Trilogy At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Reading order · Rifters
Full order & progress →- StarfishThis book
7.97.9 / 10 - Maelstrom
7.87.8 / 10 - Behemoth
–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.0 across 131 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 47% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Science fiction average of 7.8. That is how 7.9 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.2 | 17 | 13% |
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 114 | 87% |
Frequently asked
How long is Starfish?
It has 384 pages — shorter than 65% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Science fiction — and a score of 7.9, the closest to this book.
