Behemoth — Peter Watts

Five years ago you destroyed the world. The world had it coming. So you brought back a gift from the deep sea, a doomsday microbe to throw the planet on its side. Now DNA itself is on the way out. North America lies in ruins beneath the thumb of an omnipotent psychopath. Governments across the globe have fallen; warlords and suicide cults have risen from the ashes. All because five years ago, you had a score to settle. But you've discovered something in the meantime: you destroyed the world on false pretenses. For years now you've cowered among the mountains of the deep Atlantic. But you cannot hide forever. The consequences of past acts reach inexorably to the very bottom of the world -- and suddenly, even here, there's no way to take back the body count. One way or another, you're about to face the mess you made. Watts is a Canadian science fiction author and marine-mammal biologist. His first novel Starfish was then followed with the sequels,behemoth: b-Max and behemoth: Seppuku. These comprise a trilogy usually referred to as “Rifters” after the modified humans designed to work in deep-ocean environments. Watts' novel Blindsight was nominated for a 2006 Hugo Award, and has been described by Charles Stross; “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.” Echopraxia, released in 2014 is a “sidequel” about events happening on Earth and elsewhere concurrent with the events in Blindsight. In addition to his novels and short stories, Watts has also worked in other media. He was peripherally involved in the early stages of the animated science fiction film and television project Strange Frame, and also worked briefly with Relic Entertainment on one of the early drafts of the story that would eventually, years later, become Homeworld 2. The creative director of Bioshock 2 has cited Watts's work as an influence on that game.