Peter Watts is a former marine biologist and a current science-fiction author. His debut novel in the Rifters series, (Starfish) was a New York Times Notable Book, and his novel (Blindsight) has become a required text in undergraduate courses ranging from philosophy to neuroscience, and was a finalist for numerous North American genre awards. His shorter work, including Beyond the Rift, has received the Shirley Jackson, Hugo, and Aurora awards. Watts’s work is available in twenty languages and has been cited as inspirational to several popular video games. He lives in Toronto.
Praise for The Freeze-Frame Revolution
2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee
2018 British Science Fiction Award nomination
A Publishers Weekly Staff Pick / Summer 2018 Read
A Goodreads Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy title of Jan-August 2018
1000 Year Plan 2018 Recommended Reading List
Locus Recommended Reading List
2018 SCKA Award nominations
“The Freeze-Frame Revolution is a delicious morsel of hard science
fiction . . . The setup of the book is irresistible, and the
science is high-concept, but the story is driven by Sunday’s
relationships and her conviction in herself and her
companions.”
—Washington Post
“The Freeze-Frame Revolution (Tachyon), the shortest and latest
novel from Canadian Peter Watts, is as brilliant and enticingly
acute as any of his earlier and longer work.”
—Seattle Review of Books
“The Freeze Frame Revolution is the purest driven high concept SF .
. . as vivid and carnal and profane as the headiest of high-end
literature.”
—Richard Morgan, author of Altered Carbon
"This is definitely vintage Watts—outstanding, exciting, and
terrifying.”
—Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and Walkaway
“The latest from Watts (Blindsight, 2006) packs a significant punch
into a small package.”
—Booklist
[STARRED REVIEW] “In this short, tight novel that contains vast
science-fictional speculation, the human crew of the construction
ship Eriophora spends 66 million years building interstellar
wormhole gates, so they have lots of time to ponder issues of
purpose. Sunday Ahzmundin, on a quest to find a missing crewmate,
has to deal with another coworker, Lian, who is traumatized after
the ship is damaged by one of the “occasional demons” that pop out
of newly opened gates. Dropping in and out of suspended animation
as scheduled by the Chimp, the AI that runs the ship, Sunday begins
to uncover the secrets behind Lian’s subsequent death and the
disappearances of other crew members, learning what hides beneath
the ship’s closed and rigidly structured society. Watts
(Echopraxis) puts the concept of humanity under the knife, teasing
out how Chimp’s programming and Sunday’s loyalty can both tie them
together and set them at odds. Watts pits the drive toward success
against the need for connection, leading to an ending as open and
as expansive as the universe. SF fans will love this tale of
bizarre future employment and genuine wonder.”
—Publishers Weekly
[STARRED REVIEW] “Entertaining and provocative, brilliant and
ambitious, The Freeze-Frame Revolution is compelling science
fiction with heart.”
—Foreword
“Part thriller, part hard-SF vision, part existential nightmare . .
. impressive and intriguing.”
—Locus
“Fast, rich, and cool—The Freeze-Frame Revolution fascinates!”
—Greg Bear, author of Eon and Take Back the Sky
“A savvy, fast-paced, vivid mix of humans way off-planet, pounding
biology, robotics, cyberpunk, and even music. That's right,
everything you've come to expect and enjoy from Peter Watts, and
maybe a little more. This is one of his best—short, unforgettable,
highly recommended.”
—Paul Levinson, author of The Plot to Save Socrates and The Silk
Code
“Peter Watts blows my mind every single time.”
—Kelly Robson, author of Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach
“Darkness and awesome technology lurk in Peter Watts’new book, The
Freeze-Frame Revolution.”
—Vernor Vinge, author of A Fire Upon the Deep
“In The Freeze-Frame Revolution, Peter Watts takes us millions of
years into the future and hundreds of light-years away, where an
isolated fragment of humanity must confront exotic physics,
unfathomable entities, and the unforeseen consequences of their own
technologies. But it is a profoundly human story about people,
people not unlike us, under inescapable stress. A brilliant,
thoughtful story bursting with radical ideas.”
—David D. Levine, author of the Andre Norton Award-winning Arabella
of Mars trilogy
“A gripping story of a deep human future—the dependent relationship
between human and AI tangles and grows with the delicious creep of
suspense to the very last page. Watts is a poet when it comes to
science. A pleasure to read.”
—Justina Robson, author of Keeping it Real
“The Freeze-Frame Revolution is a slow-motion rebellion as
heart-stopping as any roller coaster ride and will delight readers
across the science fiction spectrum. It was a joy to read and I
found myself unable to put it down once I got started.”
—K. B. Wagers, author of Before the Throne and the forthcoming
Farian War trilogy
“Peter Watts is a triple threat: exacting hard science
extrapolation, an imagination that runs hot enough to give you
contact burns, and a gift for thrusting his characters in
situations that will expand the mind while shattering even the most
guarded of reader hearts. In The Freeze-Frame Revolution, he puts a
handful of fragile human beings into a mind-bending, explosive and
utterly inhuman situation, and lights a ten-thousand year fuse.
Unforgettable!”
—A. M. Dellamonica, author of Indigo Springs
“Watts takes familiar-seeming SF tropes and accelerates them
towards lightspeed, until they become something chillingly other. A
gripping tale where galactic timescales collide with biology and
age-old human dilemmas.”
—Hannu Rajaniemi, author of Summerland and The Quantum Thief
“The most protracted battle of the minds ever—human vs machine.
Brilliant.”
—David Marusek, author of Upon this Rock and Counting Heads
“Peter Watts has created a sci-fi work of art where every word is
refined and has a purpose. I highly recommend this work to lovers
of science fiction.”
—Infinite Text
“It's science fiction on a grand scale, covering countless
millennia and light-years. It's a story that doesn't leave the
reader comfortable, and it's terrific. But if you wanted
comfortable, you wouldn't be reading anything by Peter Watts.”
—MT Void
“I’m a big fan of author Peter Watts, and this novella The
Freeze-Frame Revolution doesn’t disappoint. Interesting characters,
fascinating science, and just great storytelling.”
—The Best Sci Fi Books
“Watts, undoubtedly, is a genius.”
—Medium
“Very highly recommended, dark, hard science fiction.”
—She Treads Softly
“Sunday’s voice—Watts’s prose—is jagged, hip, entrancing, smart,
literate and funny.”
—Paul Di Filippo, Locus
“Peter Watts certainly knows how to keep you on edge . . . The
Freeze-Frame Revolution is a fascinating novel.”
—Strange Alliances
“Watts is an original thinker and a bold storyteller, here at the
top of his considerable form. This is one of the year’s best
science fiction odysseys.”
—Intergalactic Medicine Review
“The Freeze-Frame Revolution marks the triumphal return of Peter
Watts . . . Definitely one of the speculative fiction titles to
read in 2018.”
—Fantasy Hotline
“The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts is without a doubt one
of the more engaging and original science-fiction stories I have
read recently.”
Bookwormex
“This is a masterpiece of science fiction and has sold me that I
need to read all Peter Watts that I can get my hands on.”
—Postcards from a Dying World
“The Freeze-Frame Revolution is an incredibly intelligent book with
extremely in-depth characters and a story-line that actually makes
you think, and it’s a book that when I read it, the entire time I'm
just thinking "this is what science fiction looks like.”
—The Reading Life
“The Freeze-Frame Revolution is a slim book, but a fascinating
read.”
—Geek Dad
“A masterpiece in its own right. It’s complex, detailed, impactful
. . . I would recommend it to any science fiction lover.” 4.5/5
stars
—The Curious SFF Reader
“Seriously clever and rigorous hard sci-fi about the difficulties
of planning a political revolution.”
—Caustic Cover Critic
“5/5 stars. Awesome hard SF.”
—Lela E. Buis, author of Competitive Fauna
Praise for Peter Watts
“Peter Watts is some precisely engineered hybrid of Lucius Shepard
and Gregory Benford, lyrical yet hard-edged, purveyor of sleek
surfaces and also the ethical and spiritual contents inside.”
—Locus
“Known for his pitch-black views on human nature, and a
breathtaking ability to explore the weird side of evolution and
animal behavior, Watts is one of those writers who gets into your
brain and remains lodged there like an angry, sentient tumor.”
—io9
“Watts ranges from huge-scale ideas (“The Island,” with a living
membrane surrounding a star) to the immediate (what if airport
scanners grew sophisticated enough to detect even potential
criminals, in “The Eyes of God”)? He asks the questions that the
best science fiction writers ask, but that the rest of us may be
afraid to answer.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A sharp and incisive stylist with a rather tragic, if clear-eyed,
view of human nature, and the capacity for some remarkable hard-SF
inventions.”
—Locus
“Watts continues to challenge readers with his imaginative plots
and superb storytelling.”
—Library Journal
“Possessing the stern moral acuity of James Tiptree, [Watts] also
exhibits the intellectual zest of Arthur C. Clarke.”
—Paul Di Filippo, Barnes & Noble Review
“It seems clear that every second Peter Watts is not actually
writing must be spent reading, out at the cutting edge of all the
sciences and all the arts at once.”
—Spider Robinson, author of the Callahan Series
“Holding himself to a higher standard of storytelling, Watts uses
the effects of mainstream sci-fi, yet continually aims at something
deeper in humanity and society’s soul.”
—Speculiction
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