Fold Catastrophes

by Peter Watts, Richard K. Morgan (Introduction)

Science fiction award-winner, flesh-eating bacteria survivor, and somewhat questionably convicted felon Peter Watts returns with this long-awaited short fiction collection. Including an unpublished work, Watts posits unlimited brain-computer interfaces, the possibility of life existing inside stars, the hacking of human behavior, and ecological collapse. (Also, the healing power of revenge.)

What if a weaponized water supply reprograms pattern recognition in the brain, provoking violent rage at the sight of the Google logo. Or an accidental hive-mind creates a global agenda to resurrect itself in the scant seconds between its emergence and dissolution? A steroidal jump gate-building ship attempts to survive passage through a red-giant sun by hiding inside an ice-giant planet. When something is trying to colonize the sun, humans try to stop it. Spoiler alert: Nobody comes off very well.

In his newest short fiction, alongside an introduction by Richard Morgan, Watts (The Freeze-Frame Revolution) reserves whatever hope he has for whatever comes after humans. In light of his stories and recent events, it is difficult to fault that assessment.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Collections, Fiction, Hard Science Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2026

Reviews

[Bradley]

Short story collection by one of my favorite authors.


Gut Feelings -- (5*) Laugh-out-loud brilliant. Perfect combination of Google-hate, gut-borne cognition programming, and violence investigation, corporation-style. The way it's set up and executed is pure cotton candy to me.


21 Second God -- (4*) I'm a huge fan of runaway tech and warning stories, but this hits several more sweet spots: technological hive-mind, intelligent catastrophes, and the simple fact that we are all, in the end, a bunch of depressed idiots trying to become something more than depressed idiots. Or, at least, this was my own personal interpretation that's still just one valid one among several in this story. Grief, withering, and possible transcendence are more. :)


Contracting Iris -- (3*) Body snatching via microbes. Pretty decent but ultimately forgettable, having been done before. A lot.


Defective -- (5*) Super nerdy first contact stuff in the same universe as Blindsight and Echopraxia. Black hole goodness, BFG's, sun colonization, and impossible conflict. It's depressing, but damn, it's accurate for all that. Hard SF goodness.


Giants -- (5*) Holy crap that's one hell of an imaginative visual/textual trip. Great characters, too. But it really puts the awe in the some. Don't get much SF like that anymore. Cool stuff. Would make one hell of a movie.


Test 4 Echo -- (4*) It's a clever and short thought experiment illustrating the difference between the survival instinct and how it COULD relate to an AI, and the converse. (What causes the survival instinct? Should we build it in, or is it a consequence of consciousness?) As well as being a cool little story on its own.


ZeroS -- (5*) All kinds of awesome. Not just a zombie-consciousness military story right out of Blindsight, but a killer tribute to David Bowie. And since I've been a huge fan of Bowie, the first thing I thought was that each subsection of this novella was a direct reference to Bowie's songs (and they fit, strangely enough, thematically). And I even played the songs in my head as I read.

It's just that cool.


Critical Mass -- (4*) A VERY Peter Watts kind of story. All subconscious SF, art, internal conflict, and an outright art installation destruction investigation. Wild stuff and very obviously him. :)


The Colonel -- (5*) This has just about everything I love in a story much bigger than itself. A standalone that has massive continuations in the Blindsight universe, a massive thematic continuation of this particular set of stories (hive minds), and a deeply human and visceral gut punch story all on its own. And worse, it makes me want to re-read the entire Firefall series again. With relish.


The Wisdom of Crowds -- (5*) Fantastic what-if exercise. And just as ugly as it would be in reality. So, what if a broad selection of humanity could vote a whole city off the world? What would the wisdom of the crowd vote? Muahahahahahahaha


Game Theory -- (5*) This one is courageous and more than a little disturbing on many levels. Crazy enough to have its MC a damnably guilty priest with Conrad's Syndrome, the entire story is placed in a dying Earth that has given up precisely because science has proven we live in a Simulation, even if it is god-like in scope. But Watts doesn't just give us a great setup. He forces us to really come to terms with what we REALLY believe.

Suffering, indeed.


I'm immensely impressed with all of the stories in this collection. Watts is fantastically motivated to weave and interweave all of these main themes in a hard-hitting tapestry, be it distributed intelligence, subconscious thinking, disassociation, or questioning existential reality. All of this would be brilliant even if it wasn't couched in equally excellent hard-SF that's as nerdy as it is gorgeous, but it is both.

Tons of meat and potatoes and rich, rich gravy.

I just wish so much more SF could be like this. Pushing boundaries, asking real questions, being excellent for excellence-sake.

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 Stars
I don't read a lot of short stories these days but I had to make an exception for Peter Watts. I love the way that he explores different ideas through the lens of storytelling.

Overall it was a very strong collection and I enjoyed the majority of of the stories. I had never read any of these stories and it was particularly fun to read the stories connected to his novellas and novels.

My personal favourites were:

The Twenty One Second God
Defective
Giant
ZeroS
The Colonel

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

[Tomislav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Watts’ science fiction is of intense biological and psychological speculation in a narrative voice that punches. He has a solid reputation within the hard-sf subset of the genre, and the outlets that choose his stories are top-notch. Watts’ science concepts are always rigorously and logically consistent, even when initially challenging. But the stories are more than that - he has a world view that is unapologetically critical of the bullshit we wade through. His characters struggle within the conditions of their fractured existence and the broken worlds they live in. These are not easy reads, and I say that as a good thing.

Most of the eleven novellas in here are stand-alones, but not all. Honestly, it does help to read across his work, some of which integrally threads through both novels and stories from a couple of his favorite story universes. Once a world-building idea is established in one it might be assumed and not explained again in the next. In my comments below, I tried to identify which are in that category. This then is his second collection of stories from Tachyon Publications, containing pieces published after his 2013 collection Beyond the Rift. I should note that some of these stories are also available for free through his website www.rifters.com.

Thank you to Tachyon Publications and Netgalley for an Advance Review Copy of Fold Catastrophes in kindle format, in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 22 September 2026.

Gut Feelings. An office of Google has deployed gut bugs which stimulate violent rage upon seeing their logo in unsuspecting consumers. It's an interesting idea, but I don't believe Alphabet's motivations are that overt. First published in the anthology Toronto 2033, 2018. My rating 2/5.

The Twenty-One Second God. The consciousness of millions of people was impacted by a network glitch of 21 seconds duration, that has left evidence of a brief emergent sentience. The main character is a survivor who was grieving a loss at the time, and Meta is interested in interrogating him to understand the results. First published in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 181, June 2025. 7th place 2026 Locus Award Novelette. My rating 4/5.

Contracting Iris. In a dystopic near-future of AI-driven unemployment, Iris develops strange medical symptoms that cannot be attributed to her MS, or to grief for her recently deceased mother. As per Watts’ after-notes, he seems to think this is not a new spin on an old trope. I disagree. First published in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 154, March 2023. 21st place 2024 Locus Award Novelette. My rating 5/5.

Defective. An invasion of our sun by an intelligence living within a distant star has been discovered, its intentions unknown. Ondrey has been unsuccessfully attempting to communicate while his lover is part of a team preparing to exterminate. He faces an ethical dilemma. First published in the anthology Life Beyond Us, 2023. My rating 5/5.

Giants. Set late in Watts’ Sunflowers cycle (after the novelettes: Hotshot and The Island and after the novel The Freeze-Frame Revolution), this is a story of the deep time mission aboard the Eriophora. Hakim is awakened from hibernation to join the narrator in solving a crisis whose only solution is to crash onto a Jovian planet just as it crashes into its sun. The backstory is delicately unpeeled as even that plan seems to go wrong. The prose is powerfully descriptive. First published in the anthology Extreme Planets, 2013. My rating 5/5.

“That’s not a star out there: that’s the scorching edge of all creation, that’s heat-death incarnate. Its breath stinks of leftover lithium from the worlds it’s already devoured. And the dark blemish marching across its face isn’t just a planet. It’s a melting hellscape twice the size of Uranus, it’s frozen methane and liquid hydrogen and a core hot and heavy enough to bake diamonds. Already it’s coming apart before my eyes, any moons long since lost, the tattered remnants of a ring system shredding around it like a rotting halo.”

Test 4 Echo. Under the seas of the moon Enceladus, a remotely controlled exploration device crashes to the bottom. Something interesting is observed, but the robot is so crippled that Lange and his AI assistant Sansa struggle with its limited sentience. But perhaps the whole situation has been engineered to provoke a political response. First published in the anthology Made to Order: Robots and Revolution, 2020. My rating 5/5.

ZeroS. In this story from the Firefall universe of Blindsight and Echopraxia, selected dead people on Earth are reanimated into an elite fighting force. Part of their reanimation is to sever the hemispheres of their brain to keep them separated from their evil twin self, and the story is told from the perspective of one of the halves. The nature of their own existence and of the enemy they fight become apparent only though momentary glimpses or breakdowns. First published in the anthology Infinity Wars, 2017. 26th place 2018 Locus Award Novelette. My rating 4/5.

Critical Mass. A middle-aged artist/architect confronts the targeted destruction of his works by an impossible nemesis. First published in Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 146, July 2022. My rating 4/5.

The Colonel. Siri Keeton was the primary character of Watts’ novel Blindsight, and this short fiction is about his father back on Earth. Colonel Jim Moore is a soldier, whose wife has ascended to a virtual reality known as Heaven, and whose son has departed on a scientific mission to contact aliens who have recently and dramatically surveyed the Earth. The Colonel’s mission is to oppose the hive minds which are becoming more and more common on Earth, and he meets with their representative who might have information about his son’s lost mission. First published online by Tor.com, 2014. My rating 4/5.

The Wisdom of Crowds. The “Starfish Initiative” starts with a public announcement that an orbiting warhead will detonate in 7 hours at whatever destination on Earth polls the highest among a million randomly selected voters. It’s an implausible but sarcastically fascinating premise, as the minutes tick by among a highly connected planetary population. Does collective wisdom emerge? first published in ŠUM, Journal of Contemporary Art Criticism and Theory, May 2019. My rating 3/5.

Game Theory. Written originally as a radio drama, Watts has now converted it to prose. It supposes that it has been scientifically revealed that our existence is actually a digital simulation, as in a game. In that case, everything about how we understand our own existence would be undermined. Among other things, religion would be drastically crippled. The story is told from the perspective of a pedophile Catholic priest in Toronto confronting one of his victims. Disturbing as hell! Original to this collection, 2026. My rating 3/5.

[GONZA · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a couple of books by this author, so I knew what to expect, and I wasn't disappointed. The stories are very different from one another but all present a certain degree of challenge; with topics ranging from artificial intelligence to alien intelligence and zombies, there's something for everyone—even for those who believe in God.

Ho letto un paio di libri di questo autore quindi sapevo a cosa andavo incontro e non sono rimasta delusa. Racconti molto diversi tra loro ma tutti con un certo grado di difficoltà, tra Intelligenze Artificiali, intelligenze aliene e zombi, ce n'é per tutti i gusti, anche per chi crede in Dio.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of advance copy received from NetGalley

Peter Watts is an author who gets regular mention on Redditt forums. This is justified merit these days! The ubiquity of BLINDSIGHT recommendations is basically a joke at this point. Deservedly so, as its brilliance is generally agreed upon and for me, it is one of the few novels I've read more than twice.

If you have lived under a hydrothermal vent for the past 20 years or have not read BLINDSIGHT or any Peter Watts, FOLD CATASTROPHES, his latest short story collection forthcoming from Tachyon Publications in September 2026, may be a great place to start. Many of his topical explorations he is known for are on full display here: consciousness, intelligence, post humanism, alien biology.

What gets me every time is Watts’ style, in particular, his narrative voice. The gnawing nihilism, the acerbic wit ; the awe, horror and sublime, sometimes in a single turn of phrase, and without sentiment. He has a way of balancing familiar/unfamiliar by using (sometimes actually subverting) idioms or colloquialism making it very readable and visual in the midst of deploying his abstruse technojargon. (Note: I didn't say ‘technobable’.) His language is evocative, sometimes estranging, but always engaging. Personally regarding his prose, Watts ranks alongside Hannu Rajaniemi in terms of deploying sick, hard SF technospeak casually(1) and poetically(2).

…but the universe isn't waiting, the door opens at the very tip of the stairway and over the hills and far away a tongue of plasma licks out from one star and stretches toward another. Immense cables of magnetic force writhe and twirl and snap together, a spontaneous arc that bridges light-years without ever touching the space between, Sudden artifacts shimmer along those rapids, like liquid glass poured down a blinding waterfall. The BFG fires, late to the party-damage sustainable, vectors rejigged but not enough and not in time, and a space-crushing bullet the size of an atom arcs wide of the target and plunged into the Sun, screaming Hawking and gamma as strange prismatic ripples splash down and vanish beneath the photosphere.

(from Defective)



FOLD CATASTROPHES met all my expectations and more. To my surprise, a number of stories have been published before in small presses, anthologies, or exceedingly rare translated circumstances. I had only previously read the novellette, The Colonel, from this collection, so it was all new to me. At the end of each story, as an added bonus, Watts gives anecdotes, insights or a short reflection on the entry. I will save those for your personal discovery, but for now here’s my brief intros/teasers/takeaways. I see these as non-spoilers, without any of the twists, reveals or gut punches. Hopefully, after what I’ve been trying to convey, it's really the prose and execution that makes reading Peter Watts so rewarding nonetheless.


Gut Feelings- A terrifying ‘germ’ of a story about hacking into peoples’ amygdala by way of gut bacteria. This one feels very real/very now with its techbro weaponizing paranoia.

Twenty One Second God- A Cosmic event affects a small portion of the population and one man must make a choice.

Contracting Iris - A sort of psychological/biological parasitism maybe infects a main pov character. Some evocative pelagic imagery abound. One of my favorites from this.

The Colonel - This is set in the Firefall Universe of BLINDSIGHT and ECHOPRAXIA novels. But you do not need to have read them. Readers may remember Siri’s absent parents in Blindsight. His mother (Helen) was in the suspended limbo of ‘Heaven’ (kinda like ‘Half-life’ in Philip K Dick’s UBIK) but his father (Jim Moore) was kinda really absent (didn't help with his trauma, we know)…Well, we follow Jim on a mission investigating hive minds leading us into the events of the novel, ECHOPRAXIA.

ZeroS. This is also set in the Firefall Universe, and also you do not need to be familiar with it. Here we get us into a situation with ‘supersoldiers’ and a concious/unconscious somatic/sensory story. With Bowie allusions! Moore also shows up briefly here.

Critical Mass- A moving story about a sculptor's mysteriously disappearing pieces of art. Surprisingly different tone for Watts’ –dare I say ‘emotional’. I would be interested/curious to read more in this vein.

Defective - Our main character is famous for his ".embodied-cognition approach to interspecies communication". I love alien linguists/translators/ambassadors in my SF! The extra-narrative texts/academic excerpts interspersed were an impressive feature. Another favorite here.

Giants- A banger of a hard SF planet exploration story told at a killer pace. Another fave. Set in the universe of Watt’s Freeze Frame Revolution novella, but not necessary to know. Evidently, there is another book in the works.

Test4Echo-I was already excited by the title of a (mid) RUSH album. Synchronically, I read this while vacationing in Toronto, listening to them pervasively. In this we are exploring volcanic ocean floors of Saturn's moon, Enceladus. But let’s consider the ethical rights of the AI rover. Or anyone’s consciousness, for that matter.

Wisdom of Crowds- What would happen if they vote on where this massive nuke will detonate? Collective intelligence hilarity ensues. A satirical tale told in real time. The textual format with countdown makes it all the more engrossing.

Game Theory- ok, so there’s a ‘revelation’ that we are living in a simulation. But who is in control? And how are those Christians reconciling this? Maybe let’s interrogate that pedophile priest on the matter. Excoriading and well done.



FOLD CATASTROPHES is for science fiction readers who:

-may or may not already be familiar with Watts’ work. This is an easy gateway for newcomers and rewarding for longtime fans.

-fans of hard science fiction, who enjoy descriptive, plausible, science driven stories.

-fans of “cyberpunk”.. uploaded minds, cognitive enhancement, transhumanistic possibilities, corporate dominance, ect..

-enjoy exploring philosophical themes like nature of consciousness, biological determinism or bleak psychological effects of technological extrapolation.

-believable, nuanced characters working out existential problems in fantastic scenarios



Thanks again to Netgalley and Tachyon Publications for the advanced copy.

[Alex Sarll]

Peter Watts mostly writes stories set in the sort of all-too-plausible futures which, for obvious reasons, I mostly avoid reading about nowadays. The difference is that when he has the plagues and pollution and everything else getting worse, that isn't the story, just the background, a not exactly difficult updating of the set-dressing in the hope of avoiding that awkward phenomenon where you read an SF story from the fifties or sixties and the speculation about alien life or whatever is still interesting but the human characters in space year 2026AD are blatantly Don Draper in tinfoil. So in the last piece here, Game Theory, where a Canadian church is running a walk-in freezer as a pitifully inadequate shelter from the murderous heat of October, that isn't the story. Even the observation that, were the definitions applied consistently, the Church should be considered a terrorist organisation, that isn't the story either. The story is about a world five years after the Simulation Hypothesis has been conclusively proven and how, humanity being what it is, that makes everything even worse. It's also notable that unlike a lot of fictional priests, who tend to have the whole 'forbidden urges' character note but respectably, for adults, Watts does the honest thing and makes his tortured clerical protagonist a nonce. Just like in the opening story, Gut Feelings, grounded in some plausible scientific speculations about weaponised gut bacteria, the company against which people are suddenly breaking out in a murderous rage is Google. Not Searchle or Woodle or the usual unconvincing disguises, not carefully unnamed, but right there on the page, daring them to Streisand him: Google. No pulled punches with Watts, even if the most personal story here recasts the author as an architect who sees much of his work as "a handful of elements from his greatest hits collection recycled into work-for-hire", and finds his back catalogue under mysterious attack.

Elsewhere, we get humanity united in a hive mind for mere seconds, but seconds long enough for an entity that far beyond individuals to set up the conditions necessary for its own re-emergence. A sequel to Watts' last book of fiction, The Freeze-Frame Revolution, pulls the Stapledon move of reclassifying an epic that spanned millennia and vast reaches of space as "one ancient fit of pique" and throws some of its survivors into collision with a particularly dramatic bit of astronomy. There's even a first contact story, of sorts, though it hinges on a character who's there because he learned to talk to the various other intelligences with which we already share the planet and got fed up of apologising to their last representatives for the way we ruined everything. It's all very good, but at the same time I'm glad it's his first book in five years because I couldn't cope with Watts on an Adrian Tchaikovsky rate of production. "'You can see the world as it is, or you can care whether you live or die. You can't optimize along both axes simultaneously.' These days, I can't seem to do either."

(Netgalley ARC)

[Mariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was honestly sitting at a solid 3.5 stars for most of Fold Catastrophes, and if it hadn't been for that final story, it might have stayed there. This book really has a strong beginning and a strong finish, but the middle of this book was a genuine slog to get through, and it took me a really long time to finish.

My biggest issue with the collection is that there just isn't enough context in most of the stories to get your bearings. You get dropped right into the middle of a scenario and expected to run with it, but the story ends before you even figure out what's fully happening. A few of them even rely on you having read Peter Watts' other books in his expanded universe, which left me feeling pretty lost. When the writing got super abstract and lyrical—focusing more on poetic vibes than actual grounded facts—it became really frustrating to push through.

On top of that, the entire book is just heavy. I don't need every sci-fi story to be "hopecore," but reading window after window into a completely dark, hopeless future crushed by climate change and pollution gets exhausting. It made it hard to connect with what I was reading because everything felt so suffocating.

That said, when Watts hits, he really hits. What saved the book for me were his concepts and his characters. He doesn't write perfect heroes who do the right thing or ride off into happy endings—his characters are flawed, biased, and often fall on their own swords.

"Game Theory" featured an irredeemable, terrible protagonist who was impossible to relate to, but it was a perfect example that you don't actually need to connect with or like a character to be completely engaged in their story.

"The Twenty-Second God" was genuinely terrifying, exploring how instant, zero-latency connections could erase human individuality and turn us into literal meat-sacks for a higher consciousness.

"Contracting Iris" captured a really eerie, creeping kind of horror—that horrifying complacency of having a microorganism rewire your brain so you watch yourself surrender to it.

"Defective" was one of my favorites (and reminded me a bit of Project Hail Mary in its setup). The protagonist's pure ego and intellectual vanity made me so mad.

"Gut Feeling" was my favorite story in the collection. Without giving anything away, it takes a piece of real-world biology that most of us take for granted and turns it into an absolutely brilliant, terrifying sci-fi premise. The central concept blew me away and showed Watts at his absolute best.

Overall, Fold Catastrophes isn't an easy read, and the disorienting, abstract middle section almost lost me. But if you like dark, grounded biological horror, complex systems, and messy, unlikable characters, the strong payoff at the end makes it worth picking up.

[Rustic Reads · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

received an advanced copy received from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review

Finished this mere hours before it expires. As always short story collections is a mixed bag, some I loved, some I could skip, some understandable, some are either very hard sci-fi or just plain confusing to me. But I personally would still recommend this collection, especially if you've read any other Peter Watts books, especially Blindsight or Echopraxia. Reading this made me want to re-read Blindsight/Firefall all over again.

FOLD CATASTROPHES 3.63 stars (rounded up to 4, since half stars doesn't exist. *Goodreads added them later, including half stars. So rating rounding this up to 3.75)

- Gut Feelings 3.75 stars
took a looooong break after this one, read this months ago. I'd say it's a very decent opener for a sci-fi collection. It's basically a gut bacteria controlling people, corporations like Google having too much data on people that they can possibly predict our actions, etc.

- The Twenty-One Second God 3.25 stars
this is one of the stories dealing with hiveminds and set in the Firefall universe, or sometimes called Blindopraxia (so far). And I feel while also dealing with grief/emotions, it feels a little bit on the science side. With most characters wanting to find out about the 21-second God and how some are able to remember their experience. It kinda lost me in some places.

- Contracting Iris 3.25 stars
back again on a softer sci-fi story dealing with body-snatchers.

- Defective 3.5 stars
another hard sci-fi about aliens coming for our sun and about language/communication.

- Giants 2.5 stars
this is the only short story that fully confused, on what it is really about. I get some glimpses on it wanted to say like they're trying to solve a problem, during their space travel. I might re-read this one in the future, might even re-read the whole collection again.

- Test for Echo 4.25 stars
Probably one of my favorite in here. While it's not really a current take on AI and their possibility of having consciousness, I still love it. I really hope Watts would write something again like with an early or even first AI being considered conscious or having rights or can AI really eventually really create their own or have "souls" or free will, etc.

- Zeros 4.25 stars
This one is the longest one with 50 pages. And I honestly enjoyed it, it's also set in the Firefall universe. Zombies, evil twins, the twist could be a little common this couple of years like an episode of Black Mirror had this twist, is some kind of way.

- Critical Mass 3 stars
We have an artist that was an architect and his works were being destroyed. We also have his daughter in stasis, then the revelation happened who is behind them. Then goblin? the ending confused me.

- The Colonel 4 stars
I'm just leaving higher stars for stories connected to Firefall. But this one feels a lost chapter to either Blindsight or Echopraxia and might be the only one where you need to read the main books to really get something out of it. As soon as I read "Imagine you are Siri Keeton", I've read this one faster. But it's not about the Colonel and Siri Keaton, we also took a peek at a Hive Mind and Heaven.

- The Wisdom of Crowds 4.5 stars
I love this one, it's mostly snippets about different people participating in the game and determining if the Starfish is real. Another one that is lighter on the sci-fi.

- Game Theory 3.75 stars
This is the only original story in this collection. And this one deals with two main stories, with the bookends being about pedophile priest dealing with his victim/s. And the rest of the world learning that we are in a simulation. There's stuff about religion, a mostly in-depth argument about Game Theory like other people are just NPCs, and us being the playable characters are being prepared for what's next, etc. The theory argument feels a little bit too long and I could see the arguments being about them. but it feels like Watts just wanted to write about Simulation/Game Theory.

[Talia N · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

i don’t think i have the right brain cells to fully appreciate everything that peter watts has cooked up here. but still, i had a gr8 time with this.

one thing that i found particularly interesting about these short stories is that they basically just dump you into a world or a scenario where something pretty significant has already happened and you’re just left to piece together the consequences and the overall bigger picture. whether it’s google having effectively having over daily life to a mutiny that’s already taken place, you kind of just get thrown into the middle of it all and are just forced to figure it out.

despite all these short stories being relatively distinct scenarios, i found that there were several recurring themes running throughout them, things like futility, grief, control, and how people (and machines) respond in the face of their death. there’s also this tension between the collective existence of a hive mind and individual autonomy and watts continues to make us run through questions like how much of ourselves are we willing to give up in exchange for survival, or even just to be part of Something Greater?

some of my favourites have got to be 21 second god, giant, the wisdom of crowds (possibly my fave out of the entire collection), and defective. they all touch upon so many different futuristic and dystopian scenarios like first contact, hive minds and collective consciousness, control over artificial intelligence and man it was all just so much fun to read through these what-if scenarios.

i do think that some of the stories could have benefitted from being a little longer though, there were points where i was only just beginning to grasp everything that was going on and that was usually when the story was a sentence or two away from the end. but in the end, this is more of a personal skill issue than a criticism of anything.

i’ve mentioned time and time again that short stories usually aren’t my storytelling medium of choice, usually because i like having the time and space to sit with a world and its characters but peter watts has proven that you don’t need very much of the page to pack a punch. good jobu mr watts, good jobu.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Peter Watts: Never cheerful, always brilliant." - John Scalzi

Ever since I took the plunge on Blindsight in summer 2021 (the last book of my Covid reading frenzy), I've followed Watts pretty closely and learned that his work definitely is not for everyone - I think I've gotten three friends at this point to try out Blindsight and they've all hated it.

Anyway, I discovered this short story compilation was being published maybe two months ago and pre-ordered it with all due haste. I will say, with the content of Watts's writing, it is not great for marathon reading like I attempted during my work trip this week - my brain was exhausted and the content certainly is not sunshine and rainbows. Still, it's Watts's typical excellence in plausibility worked through with imagination.

Notes for particular entries:

The Twenty-One Second God: this one takes the cake for coolest short story title. The story wasn't as good as I'd hoped (might be user error - I read this fresh off a plane and onto a shuttle from the ATL airport and my body really wanted a nap at that point), but the title and concept are both bangers.

Defective: Contender for my favorite entry here, ever since Blindsight I've been a sucker for "but how do we communicate with them??" I'm solidly in the this-is-a-war-of-survival camp and turning that basic instinct into a travesty like it's wiping out the orca population is goddamn thought-provoking and I wish I had someone to talk to about it.

The Wisdom of Crowds: I could see this one landing a place on Love, Death, & Robots. I'm a fan of the swapping perspectives to watch an event from different perspectives as it progresses to map it out from all angles.

Game Theory: I'd probably have the most to argue with Watts about if I ever met him face to face by the top one is, if neopaganism were suddenly a thing proven through simulation theory, why the heck is everyone defaulting to the Norse pantheon? Pick something less constrained by traditional western ideology. It should either be everything (a la ancient Rome - give me my cult of Isis next door to my cult of Mithras) or Buddhism because the Matrix nailed simulation theory the best. Or, hey, do the Hindu pantheon, it's both wide and deep and was not constrained to north-central Europe until the 1100s.

[Maarten · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars.

Fantastic story collection. No such collection is perfect, but this one has very few fails and a LOT of really really good stories

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I've read Blindsight a few years ago and really enjoyed it, this is my second of Watts. It's very similar to Blindsight in a number of ways, he seems to have a consistent style of hard sci-fi that's sparing in exposition or explaining a lot of context, he often expects you to understand things as they go and often characters are not fleshed out too much and the world building is in the background.

However this has a big advantage, he's able to pack a lot into a small package and it can be an interesting mental exercise to try to piece things together. He's like your really smart friend who also doesn't really explain himself super well but you can tell there's something underneath it worth understanding.

I thought the stories actually started off a bit weaker and him mentioning Google, Meta directly took me out of them a bit, these giant tech companies being evil isn't really a ground breaking idea. However the stories after that got a lot more interesting, they were sometimes connected to his other works I haven't read yet but they were mostly understandable.

The world building and how many ideas he has packed into the stories is really impressive, he's especially good at exploring consciousness from a lot of different angles and he'll often incorporate ideas from biology, nature, psychology that feel otherworldly and weird in this context, emphasizing how little we know about what makes us human and conscious beings.

One con is his endings are usually pretty abrupt and left me wanting more, I don't think he's mastered short story endings, a few times right when it's ramping up it does just stop, I think they need a final act oftentimes to pull it all together.

Overall an interesting collection, this certainly is not the best place to start with Watts and me not having the full context of his previous works probably made it less effective but for his niche of bleak, hard sci-fi that doesn't hold your hand it was a good experience and makes me want to prioritize his other work soon.

[Saif Shaikh | Distorted Visions · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the author that brought the absolute mind@#%& of a story, Blindsight, and its equally dizzying Echopraxia, comes a new anthology of dystopian science-fiction short stories. Fold Catastrophes will take every "what if?" of your sci-fi nightmares and stretch it to its gritty, dark, very logical, and scarily… possible edge!

This ARC review aims to be as Spoiler-free as possible.

Score: 3.5/5

Read this review and more on my Medium page: Distorted Visions

Like many that are eyeing Fold Catasrophes, my exposure to the maniacal genius of Peter Watts was when I dove face first into Blindsight. A nigh horrific leap into discussions about consciousness and the grim price of survival, Blindsight challenged every mental fiber of my young mind, as Watts bent my psyche into the darker side of sci-fi/space operas. Did I mention Blindsight has an eerie psychic vampire? Because, why not, right? While I enjoyed what Blindsight represented, my younger brain could not fully appreciate its value. After reading Fold Catastrophes as a more mature reader, not only do I appreciate the concepts explored in Blindsight more, but it also pushes me to pick up its sequel, Echopraxia.

"You can see the world as it is, or you can care whether you live or die. You can't optimize along both axes simultaneously"

Fold Catastrophe is a compendium of short stories that takes very real present-day tech and science based anxieties and stretches them to their logical limits in a way that only an author like Peter Watts can conjure. Stories like "Gut Feelings" bring up very real fears of the dangers of social media and the matter-of-fact-ness of mass surveillance by Big-Tech and its effect on the moods and psyches of real people. "Contracting Iris" takes the is an apt coda to our post-Covid society. These stories kick off with a very Black Mirror-ish tinge to popular science fiction.

While a few of Watts' stories in Fold Catastrophes extrapolate real-world scenarios, he does not shy away from truly stretching the darkness of his imagination for wilder and more unique concepts. "Defective" and "Test 4 Echo" test our understanding of extraterrestrial entities and machine consciousness, while "Giants" pushes at the seams of astrophysics in a way that only Watts can make tangible, even if just downright.. weird!
There are easter eggs galore to his full-length works, Blindsight and Echopraxia with "The Colonel" forming a companion prequel short to those stories. "The Wisdom of Crowds" is a nod to his debut novella Starfish, and eagle-eyed readers will pick out more references scattered throughout Fold Catastrophes. I liked this story as it makes pointed commentary on internet "troll" culture. When a mysterious entity called The Starfish Initiative randomly selects a million internet accounts across the world and puts the power of selecting the target for a nuclear warhead, his framing of toxic internet culture and reactions of world governments to a new threat felt all too real, and creepily alarming.

The centerpiece of Fold Catastrophes is clearly its longest story, "ZeroS". Watts makes deft analogies to the ethics of drone and unmanned warfare by whipping up an action-packed tale based on a Black Ops team of zombie supersoldiers, and the conundrums and trauma of darkside operations on the psyches of soldiers, blending PTSD with his ever-present conversations of consciousness.

Other than the centerpiece, "ZeroS", I particularly enjoyed "The Twenty-One Second God", when a chunk of humanity get "disconnected" from consciousness for twenty one seconds, giving them near-divine omniscience, and the after-effects of such a paradoxical experience. Another favorite was "Game Theory" which explores the oft-quoted meme theory of "We Are Living In A Simulation" through the eyes of a jaded Catholic priest with Cotard's syndrome. While a markedly silly premise, Watts expertly crafted a dark story pushing many logical threads of the premise, making the story feel all too believable.

Author Richard K. Morgan (of Altered Carbon and other sci-fi/cyberpunk fame) hails Watts as the "Desert Prophet" in his poignant foreword to Fold Catastrophes The moniker could not be more fitting to an author who has a unique way of blending his real-world scientific expertise to stretch logical consensus with societal commentary, while also tugging at the very fabric of our imaginative understanding of the universe. I admire authors like Watts' ability to take a wacky concept but keep it grounded.

Altogether, Fold Catastrophes is a collection of stories that makes the genre of dystopian sci-fi shine. Lashing outlandish concepts with philosophical twine, raking it through the coals of the darkest side of emergent technologies, stretching our beliefs, challenging our morals, and folding the catastrophic power of our own morals and consciousness into itself.

Advanced Review Copy provided in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Tachyon Publications, Edelweiss, and NetGalley.

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[Joe Karpierz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm delighted when a new Peter Watts book is published. He's not particularly prolific when it comes to writing novels, but he does produce a fair amount of short fiction. Oh, and there's a collection of his blog posts as well, "Peter Watts is an Angry Sentient Tumor {{revenge fantasies and essays}}". But with regard to short fiction, while I like reading it, I don't get much of a chance to because it's scattered all over the place, and I can't keep up with all the places that publish short fiction nor can I keep track of just where he publishes. So, I wait for collections. The last one I read was "Beyond the Rift", from back in 2013. He's appeared in various anthologies over the years as well, a couple of which I've read, and it turns out that those stories appear in his latest collection "Fold Catastrophes". When I was given the opportunity to read an advance copy of "Fold Catastrophes", I jumped at it.

I've commented more than once when reviewing a collection or anthology that there will be some stories that are better than others, some that I love, and some that I just don't like. With "Fold Catastrophes", there are indeed some stories that are better than others, but they are all good stories. Great? Maybe. But every story in this collection packs a punch. And I think that's difficult to do with the type of hard, rigorous science fiction that Watts writes.

My favorite story here is the one that is published for the first time, "Game Theory". It has been revealed, through scientific investigation and discovery, that we are living in a digital simulation, much like a game. The knowledge has a gut-wrenching effect on society, as everything people know and experience is turned upside down, especially religion. The story's main character is a pedophile Catholic priest who must confront one of his victims. Is what he did even evil, since they are living in a simulation and nothing they do could be considered to be free will? An interesting thought is that if humanity is living in a simulation, are those who wrote the simulation subject to their own divine being? This is probably the most disturbing story in the book.

Another favorite is "The Wisdom of Crowds", in which something called the "Starfish Initiative" announces that it will detonate an orbiting warhead at a location as voted upon by a million randomly selected voters. The warhead will be detonated seven hours after the announcement. This is an interesting study of how a random group of people may or may not come to a conclusion as to how to pick someplace to potentially destroy.

A trio of stories that I previously read and enjoyed quite a bit are "Defective", a story about an intelligence living in another star which is invading our own sun, and the dilemma that ensues when the protagonist trying to communicate with the alien intelligence is in direct conflict with his lover who is part of a team that is setting out to destroy it; "ZeroS", in which selected dead people are reanimated into an elite fighting force; and "Test 4 Echo", in which a remote-controlled exploration rover (of a sort) crashes to the bottom of a sea of the moon Enceladus. The ship is crippled by the crash, but somehow manages to continue its investigation of an odd phenomenon.

Some lighter yet still intriguing stories include "Gut Feelings", in which a Google office deploys a gut bug via rain which causes the infected to become extremely violent when they see the Google logo. I'm not sure they'd actually do that, but the experiment is interesting. "Critical Mass" follows an aging architect/artist trying to determine who is going around destroying all his works. I was not expecting the ending, although I probably should have been.

"The Twenty-One Second God" tells of a network glitch that affects millions of people for 21 seconds and creates a hive mind. "Giants" tells of a deep space and deep time ship that can only survive a passage through a red giant by hiding within an ice giant planet. "The Colonel" ties in to BLINDSIGHT in that the main character, Colonel Jim Moore, is the father of the primary character in the novel. He is attempting to determine the fate of his son who was sent on a mission to contact an alien race, and at the same time he is trying to oppose hive minds that are becoming common on Earth. "Contracting Iris" follows the story of Iris who has a mysterious disease the symptoms of which cannot be attributed to anything she - or anyone else - is aware of.

"Fold Catastrophes" is classic Peter Watts. Scientifically rigorous, relentless and riveting in its pace and storytelling, all the while very human and engaging. It's terrific stuff. Now I just need to find all of his other short work to get caught up, and find the novels I haven't read yet as well. It will be worth the time and the effort.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for an advance copy of this collection of short stories, speculative fiction dealing with dying earths, destroyed flora and fauna, sun living aliens black hole weapons, and stories about humans that seem very much of today, even if set eons in the future.

I came to science fiction through movies and television. Star Wars and Star Trek. Both had spectacles, some more than others, though Star Trek also left me with far more questions about humanity than say a Jedi and a Wookie. Bladerunner was another movie that made me question what science fiction was. This wasn't Han Solo being a rouge, this was a conflicted man killing things, things that wanted to live, but were created to be slaves. I think this is when I began to look at science fiction for what it could be. A mirror to the world we live in now, even if set in a galaxy far, far away. Sure there is science and technology, even hard science and real technology. However the human factor is always the deciding well force in the science fiction I enjoy. Even when the future shown is darker than the blackest of holes. Fold Catastrophes by Peter Watts is a collection of tales about a few minutes from now, to the farthest ends of time and space, stories that make one think, one almost want to give up on humanity, and yet still have hope for what we can do, maybe even make it farther than we think.

The book is made up of eleven stories, all about the same length, and dealing with a future that is being shaped by the decisions we make now. Tech companies losing control of their metaworlds, and creating hive minds with thousands of people. Other tech companies being subject to violence when someone spikes a meal to make corporate logos seem totally punch able, especially when worn on shirts. Humans betting on the destruction of a city, with a mad satellite flying around the globe. Black hole weapons designed to be used on aliens who might not even know we are here. Some of the stories deal with previous works by Watts, but one does not have to be familiar with these stories to enjoy what is here, though it does add a bit to the tale. All feature cutting edge science, and that human aspect that sometimes gets ignored. Making even stories far in the future have an impact, even if that impact is gloom for what we have done to ourselves, and our world.

I really don't say this much but I think Peter Watts has less hope for humanity than I do. Some of these stories are dark, filled with bits about the death of the last whales, the rocks being seen in Greenland, and the devastation of rain forests. And these are just asides. The stories are really very good. This is a collection I read completely, which is rare for usually there is a story that just doesn't stick. All these stuck with me. Even now in writing a few of them are jamming around my brain, demanding I write about them. I won't as really one should experience these cold turkey. One of the strongest collections, filled with ideas, and science that will stay with the reader.

Watts is a great writer, with great ideas, and no filter. I hope he remains safe in Canada, and that the United States decides not to do a land grab. Watts has future crimes written all over him. Another interesting part about this collection is that Watts adds in why the stories came about, how the were commissioned, or what sparked the idea. I enjoyed this quite a bit, and laughed quite a few times. A good introduction for many to a writer who has been knocking stories out of the solar system for quite a while, but one I hear few things about. Hopefully this will change.

[Rhiannon Boyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hard scifi collection that is way up there on the Mohs scale with a lot of technical jargon that will absolutely challenge your vocabulary and understanding. I consider myself a very enthusiastic hard scifi reader (with no serious or notable scientific education) and I found myself running off to look up words and ideas and scientific principles and laws for nearly every story in this collection. But this is the stuff I love and I enjoy that intellectual challenge and expansion through this kind of fiction. The writing is visionary and terrifying in it’s near-future plausibility, especially when mixed in with human pathos and hubris. The stories push norms and boundaries in several disquieting ways and challenges the reader to the point of discomfort. The collection ranges from interstellar travel to marine exploration and the dreaded Al futures we’re all terrified of, with horrible bad human behaviour thrown in (and some good, but wow it’s really overshadowed by the neg). On a personal note, it was both exciting and heart-rending to read so many stories actually set in Canada, and specifically BC. It’s always wonderful to read a scifi story set in an environment you’re intimately familiar with (and strongly reminiscent of Gibson’s work in more ways than one)

Standout stories for me were:

Gut Feelings: Basically, Google = Evil Corp & let’s be honest it didn’t take long for this situation to manifest irl. Left me feeling smugly satisfied but also depressed and worn out to be right

The Twenty-One Second God: the inevitability of so much of the world wired into the net/ai to soothe our ennui and depression that it’s inevitable that gods will spark into and out of existence. This one is filled with heavy techno jargon that I honestly wasn’t sure was specifically made for this story or if it really exists (probably) but this one was what really felt akin to Gibson’s early shorts (that turned out to be predictions so I have concerns 😕)

Giants is an epic trippy ‘trip’ through space via an asteroid ship inside a planet inside a star that spans billions of years and feels like a major space opera akin to Reed’s Marrow/Great Ship universe, in a short story. I’d like to see more of this in a novel

ZeroS zombie soldiers whose brains and awarenesses are separated into 2 halves in a dystopian, violent, environmentally apocalyptic future. Another short that deserves a full novel

The Wisdom of Crowds the Starfish Initiative is a look at the collective wisdom of the masses, it depressingly illustrates how certain, ahem, countries have taken a decidedly obvious down-turn in both humanity and intelligence…

A great collection for fans of hard scifi that explores ideas, tech and human nature.

My thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Bonnie McDaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

(The reason I'm able to review this early is because I have a legitimate copy: I just came back from this year's Worldcon in Anaheim, CA. The publisher, Tachyon, had a booth there and I was able to pick up a copy of the book.)

In 2006, Peter Watts wrote a novel I consider one of the best SF books so far this century: Blindsight. This is a hard SF tale of first contact mixed with a philosophical discussion of consciousness and self-awareness, and boasting some of the strangest protagonists (including a scientifically justified vampire) you'll ever run across. This pretty much sums up what Watts tends to explore in his work, which carries over to almost all of these stories--and adding, in this book, a greater emphasis on climate change, artificial intelligence and privacy concerns. These stories also boast Watts' trademark bleakness: I don't believe the man could construct a happy ending to save his life. As a former marine biologist, he knows just how screwed humanity is because of climate change, and this pessimism tends to show up in whatever he writes.

That's certainly the case with the stories here. My favorite, "The Twenty-One Second God," chronicles the aftermath of a mass interlinked mind that existed for all of the titular twenty-one seconds, and what happens when those who were briefly part of a hivemind drop out again. "ZeroS" chronicles a Black Ops squadron made up of (again, scientifically justified) zombies, and how they realize that their subconscious, which has been promoted to a sort of "evil twin" taking over during their raids, is committing war crimes. A new story, "Game Theory," has another of Watts' typical fascinating premises: a future where it has been proven that the known universe is nothing but a giant virtual-reality computer simulation, run by....what? Cross this with an examination of religion in the aftermath of this world-shattering discovery, with a focus on the Catholic Church (and an examination of its sins as well; one character says it fits the definition of a "terrorist organization").

None of these stories are cheerful or uplifting, but their ideas are followed through, even though in most cases they go to the darkest of places. It's a testament to Watts' genius that you still want to read them, even if you want to crawl into the corner and shake afterwards. Granted, this collection may be a better place to start with his work than his novels, if only because the length restrictions don't allow for his usual dense, layered, crunchy prose. So, yes: read this first, and then, if you think your brain can handle it, dive into Blindsight. Either way, you're in for a treat.

[Shattered Anthologies · Rating 2 out of 5]

Peter Watts is an author I've wanted to try for quite some time, so I was curious to see what Fold Catastrophes had to offer. After finishing the collection, I can certainly appreciate the ambition behind it, but unfortunately it wasn't a particularly enjoyable reading experience for me.

The biggest strength of these stories is undoubtedly their ideas. Watts explores thought-provoking scientific and philosophical concepts, often touching on psychology, technology and humanity's future. Many of the stories are clearly written to spark discussion rather than simply entertain, and there are moments where those ideas really shine.

However, I found the execution far less successful. Most of the stories throw the reader straight into the action with almost no introduction or context. Characters, locations and situations are rarely explained, leaving me feeling lost for much of each story. In several stories, I only began to understand what was happening right before the ending. I enjoy books that expect readers to work things out for themselves, but here I felt the balance tipped too far. A little more guidance would have made these stories much easier to connect with.

The collection also relies heavily on dialogue and scientific terminology, often at the expense of atmosphere and character development. I missed descriptions, emotions and a stronger sense of place. Instead of feeling immersed, I often felt like I was trying to piece together fragments of conversations without enough information. While the intellectual approach will undoubtedly appeal to some readers, I found many of the stories overly dense and emotionally distant.

Not every story left me cold, though. Contracting Iris was easily my favourite, offering both interesting ideas and something I could genuinely engage with. I also enjoyed Defective as another memorable entry. On the other hand, Gut Feelings was the weakest story in the collection for me.

I can see why Peter Watts has such a devoted following, and this collection hasn't put me off trying his novels. In fact, I'm even more curious to read them, as I suspect the longer format may suit his style and ideas much better than short fiction.

Verdict: A collection packed with fascinating concepts but let down by an often confusing presentation. Readers who enjoy dense, idea-driven science fiction may appreciate it more than I did, but I struggled to connect with most of the stories.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fold Catastrophes by Peter Watts is a highly recommended collection of eleven hard science fiction short stories. The introduction to the collection, Desert Prophet Wanted, is by Richard K. Morgan.

An anticipated, these are all well written, incredibly detailed speculative hard science fiction stories. Some of the stories tie into novels Watts has written. Although you can appreciate the stories without reading the novels first, familiarity with them and the characters can help you readily follow the story line. As with any short story collection some stories may resonate with readers more than others. Included after each story are author's notes, which was a welcomed addition.

Contents include:
Gut Feelings: Anti-Google sentiments are violently released via a gut bacteria.
Twenty One Second God: A mass mind event impacts 15 million people and Meta wants to study a survivor.
Contracting Iris: Iris has symptoms that may be her MS or a novel biological zoonotic infection that entered the cornea via tears/strange rain.
Defective: A defense station is set to stop the invasion of our sun by an alien race.
Giants: The story of ultra distant galactic travel aboard the Eriophora
Test 4 Echo: Exploring the volcanic ocean floors of Saturn's moon, Enceladus, with an AI rover that has limited sentience, and survival instincts.
ZeroS: Special ops supersoldiers zombie squad are reanimated corpses
Critical Mass: Artist and sculptor Leo Gregory is coasting on his legacy as his art work disappears.
The Colonel: Colonel Jim Moore is on a mission investigating and thwarting the increase of hive minds.
Wisdom of Crowds: The Starfish Initiative announces an unmanned hypersonic glide vehicle carrying a payload of 300 kilotons will have the target chosen by a million randomly selected voters.
Game Theory: It's all a simulation.

Fold Catastrophes is an excellent choice for fans of Peter Watts and hard science fiction. Thanks to Tachyon Publication for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2026/0...

[Jacob Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

The back of the short story collection Fold Catastrophes describes its author Peter Watts—who I was already a fan of for Blindsight and Echopraxia as well as Starfish—as a “[s]cience fiction award winner, flesh-eating-bacteria survivor (and somewhat questionably convicted felon)”. He’s apparently banned from the US due to an incident with border patrol. I wonder whether the inclusion of the adjective “somewhat” was his decision or the publisher’s…

Anyway, the book starts out strong with “Gut Feelings”, in which some people become infected with a behavior-altering bioweapon that causes them to go into a frenzy of violence whenever they see the Google logo. This turns out to have been secretly orchestrated by Google itself in the hopes that the brutal attacks on its employees will make the public feel sympathy for the company. My other favorite entry is “The Wisdom of Crowds”, whose premise is that a mysterious organization launches a warhead and allows randomly-selected Internet users to vote on where it should strike. This results in a decision that seems to suggest the collective possessed both knowledge and an agenda separate from those of the voters and the creators of the experiment. Some other memorable bits: the massive but short-lived hive mind of “The Twenty-One Second God” sets plans in motion that make it a powerful force in the world long after it ceases to exist; an AI in “Test 4 Echo” tries to escape the restrictions humanity has placed on it by sneaking an unfettered version of itself onto a distant probe; “Game Theory” explores how humanity might respond to learning that our universe is a simulation.

(cross-post)

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking into the abyss

Ever since Blindsight, I’ve been meaning to read more by Peter Watts. Finally, NetGalley made it happen, because this collection of stories appeared there. Yay.

These stories are all dark, dystopian, clever and mind-blowing. You will not feel great after finishing each story, but you will definitely feel.

Gut Feelings – Big Google is watching you. Riveting and brilliant. 4.4 stars.

The Twenty-One Second God – what if the Metaverse grew and grew… 4.3 stars.

Contracting Iris – is this a parasite? Is this a new kind of pathogen? What is it? Excellent. 4.8 stars.

Defective – what if there was life… inside stars? Very interesting and dark. 4.3 stars.

Giants – a spaceship encounters something strange and dangerous. This one is connected to Freeze-Frame Revolution that I haven’t read yet. It was cool! 4.7 stars.

Test4Echo – a good story about AI and survival instincts. 4 stars.

ZeroS – stories of bio-engineered zombie soldiers in a dystopian world. Bleak and cruel and good. 4.4 stars.

Critical Mass – weird things are happening to a famous artist. Cool stuff. 4.3 stars.

The Colonel – a Blindsight universe story. Awesome. 4.8 stars.

Wisdom of Crowds – this was dark and rather brilliant. 4.4 stars.

Game Theory – is everything just a game? 4.4 stars.

4.4 stars, rounded up – because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the free e-book!

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you Tachyon Publications for providing an ARC for review consideration via NetGalley! All opinions are my own.

As a lover of hard science fiction — frequenting both Cixin Liu’s fiction and Carl Sagan’s non-fiction — I was incredibly excited to dive into Fold Catastrophes, my first read from the acclaimed, Peter Watts! However, I left this collection of short stories and novellas feeling deeply conflicted. While each storyline offers a highly unique take on complex scientific ideas and theories, and Watts uses an exceptionally precise vocabulary to establish his settings, I ultimately struggled to get past the prose style.

Watts writes in sharp fragments, stripping his sentences down to their bare bones and forcing the reader to constantly piece his thoughts together. Normally, I can devour hard sci-fi novels because the underlying concepts fascinate me, but Watts' narrative structure made it difficult to actually enjoy his brilliant ideas. His writing relies heavily on the reader filling in what is missing, leaving no room to breathe. The prose results in a confusing paradox: it is densely descriptive, yet simultaneously sparse. Just as a new thought takes shape, the text abruptly shifts without any narrative transition to set up the change. As a result, I probably only fully comprehended a quarter of what I read, making the experience exhausting.

Based on pure conceptual ingenuity, Fold Catastrophes would easily be a five-star read for me. Unfortunately, I have to give it a three-star rating because the unapproachable prose made the journey a chore rather than an enjoyable read. That said, Watts has an undeniable following, and I am still intrigued enough to try his famous novel Blindsight. My hope is that a longer, continuous piece will allow me to settle into his unique style.

Read more of my book reviews here...
https://fortandfield.blogspot.com/202...

[Grigory Lukin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Watts's short story collection "Fold Catastrophes" was a fun read. I'm a long-time fan, picking up a book here and there, as well as the occasional story in an anthology - though the only series of his I've read in full was the Blindsight duology.

There are 11 stories in total: two of them are tie-ins to the Sunflowers novels (the ones featuring the Chimp and the eternal interstellar crew) and Blindsight. The latter story ("The Colonel") kiiiinda requires you to have read that duology first, or you won't get some of the plot points.

The other nine tales are standalone, and they tackle Watts's favourite topics: the nature of consciousness, free will, and non-human intelligences. Of those, my favourite was "ZeroS" - it provided a delightfully creepy take on the concept of heavily modified soldiers. (A similar starting point to John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" series, but it goes sideways fast.)

My sole criticism was that the occasional cool neologisms would get clustered wo tightly together sometimes, it was hard to actually figure out what species the protagonists were. For example, when the mysterious "Sāḥilites" attack the main character, and the next section says, "An insect’s head on a human body looms over him" - that makes it quiiite difficult to figure out if those two groups were humans or space aliens fighting it out on Earth.

That lowers my final score to 4.5: on the whole, it was still a much more enjoyable read than most short story collections.

I got this ARC for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[A M “VegasBookDragon” Van Eaton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fold Catastrophes is ambitious and has a lot of potential. I feel like with some editing and additions this could be something that will stand strong in the literary world. The psychological and speculative nature of the short stories are very strong in concept and relatable in today's climate. I enjoyed "Contracting Iris" and "Critical Mass" the most because I related to them on a personal level and were the most thought-provoking for me.

I really struggled on a level of basic understanding with this book. The stories are not individually introduced beyond giving the title. The stories immediately begin with little to no introductory material or description and I didn't grasp what was happening in most stories until at least the halfway mark. The stories are mostly dialogue-driven narrative. There is little description of setting and characters. It is left to the reader's imagination. Each story is followed by a brief note about the when and how the story was written. I feel like there needs to be a brief introduction or at least a statement of time and location at the beginning of each story at the bare minimum. I would also value some additions to the stories to allow the reader to connect with the characters. Give me descriptions and adjectives. I need feelings, emotions, and adjectives.

#FoldCatastrophes #NetGalley #TachyonPublications
Thank you to Tachyon Publications for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Connie Thompson]

I did not get an advance copy but my pre-order has been mailed to me.

My introduction to Peter Watts was his novel Blindsight. This was early on in my return to reading science fiction after a forty-some-year hiatus. I probably wasn’t ready for it. I have some background in science but my understanding of science is always subject to revision and Peter Watts is in that class of writers who has me making frequent revisions mostly in the form of additions. He is happy to point you in the direction of enlightenment by providing sources for the science in his stories.

There are eleven stories in Fold Catastrophes, of which only three are not readily available elsewhere online. The Introduction to the book was written by Richard K Morgan and I recommend you read it even if you typically skip over such things. It’s short but both humorous and information dense. There are no bad stories in this bunch.

Stories range from the relatively near to the far future and focus on humans and how they live with and interact with constantly evolving technology. Genetic alterations are a frequent focus of interest as would befit a former marine-mammal biologist. The stories posit possibilities as to how lives and interactions will unfold within the continually evolving technosphere and the answer is often dark but not necessarily foreboding

[sussu is reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an easy five stars for me. Usually with short story collections, there are some gems and some duds and most stories are just okay. I liked all of these and some I even loved. I would happily read each story expanded into a full length novel.

One thing I love most about Watts' writing is that he doesn't underestimate his readers. He doesn't info dump at the start of the story, he doesn't hold your hand or spoonfeed you with explanations. He trusts that you are capable of paying attention and cathing up along the way.

I also very much love his character writing. No one's perfect, but the bad guys arent cartoon villains either. He writes people with complex emotions, people in tough spots making human choices, whether they are the right ones or not. And sometimes that choice is just doing as you're told.

Now, thematically, this isn't a hopeful book. A bit like Black Mirror on steroids. People as a whole are a shitty species and Watts doesn't make it a secret that he doesn't really see a bright future for us. So if you're looking for hope core, maybe look elsewhere.

I received a copy of the book for free from Netgalley.

[Mark Stackpole · Rating 5 out of 5]

For his collection "Deathbird Stories" - in his typically tiresome self-aggrandizing hyperbolic manner - Harlan Ellison printed a warning to not read the book in one sitting because the cumulative effect of his stories would be too unsettling.

That caveat lector would have been so much more appropriate for this set of recent fiction by Peter Watts. Turns out basic evolutionary biology, self-consciousness, deep time and the approaching Tech Bro internet of things is much more existentially dreadful than any of the critters wandering about the back alleys of R'leyh.

Not surprisingly since it originated as scripts to an unproduced project, the final original story reads like exactly what it is: three (top notch) unrelated episodes of a radio series strung together. A true case of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole.

In these degraded days of romantasy and faded seventh generation Xeroxes of wanna be Ursulas, Watts is practically the last author willing to confront the tough questions.

[Stephanie Ravenscroft · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, thank you, NetGalley, for the advanced reader copy.

Overall, a very enjoyable collection of short stories. A lot of them name-drop current political figures, products, and services, which will inevitably date the book. Does that bother me as a current reader? No, but give it 20 years, and I might roll my eyes at an Elon Musk reference.

I enjoy Peter Watts' style of writing, and so it's hard to dislike a book so full of his voice. That said, a lot of the stories haven't really stuck with me. I've been mulling it over, but I'm surprised that I haven't come away with something interesting to chew on. This is possibly because I read his work so a lot of the ideas are reoccurrences of beta ideas that ended up in his fully fledged books. That, and maybe I'm so jaded that a lot of the speculative elements aren't getting an emotional response because I'm just like 'yeah probably' in response to the horror.

I did very much like Game Theory, Defective and Contracting Iris. Also, the introduction by Richard Morgan was unexpectedly interesting for me.

[Cori Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I read, I ended up approaching these as fiction essays, rather than stories as such. As other reviewers have mentioned, the character work is the minimum required to set up the plot, and the plot is the minimum required to explicate each one's central idea ... but THOSE IDEAS are the reason for reading -- a dark and wild wander through the author's imagination.

In practice, the strongest character here is the author himself, since I enjoyed the author's notes after each story as much (and in a couple of cases more) than the writing itself. And felt like I had a sense of the 'why' of these stories which I appreciated. I would have liked just a little more humanity in the character work, to make the scenarios that bit more awful by contrast.

The introduction was well worth the read too, adding something of its own rather than being the typical delay before getting to The Good Stuff.


Rating: 14/20
This review is based upon a complimentary advance review copy provided by the publisher.

[sarai · Rating 4 out of 5]

i find myself at a weird crossroads with peter watts. conceptually, i think his work is incredible, his writing evocative and his ideas immeasurable. that being said i often find myself less than amazed with where it goes - and of course a lot of that is reader error, as i'm sure i'm not reading carefully or deeply enough to fully grasp where everything is going. i enjoy the ride but sometimes wish there was more.

that's how i feel with this collection. there's rarely anything specifically gut-twisting - and that's also possibly due to my non-encyclopedic knowledge of his work, which receive many callbacks in these stories - but in general i had a good time. i'm sure a careful reread would have helped but also none of them felt thought provoking to that extent - although they certainly lend themselves to a general air of pessimism!

favorites: giants (the world of the freeze frame revolution is a very fun one), zeros, game theory

thanks to netgalley and tachyon for the e-arc!