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Rifters #3 part 2
Behemoth: Seppuku
Lenie Clarke-amphibious cyborg, Meltdown Madonna, agent of the Apocalypse-has grown sick to death of her own cowardice.
For five years (since the events recounted in Maelstrom 0, she and her bionic brethren (modified to work in the rift valleys of the ocean floor) have hidden in the mountains of the deep Atlantic. The facility they commandeered was more than a secret station on the ocean floor. Atlantis was an exit strategy for the corporate elite, a place where the world's Movers and Shakers had hidden from the doomsday microbe ßehemoth-and from the hordes of the moved and the shaken left behind. For five years "rifters" and "corpses" have lived in a state of uneasy truce, united by fear of the outside world.
But now that world closes in. An unknown enemy hunts them through the crushing darkness of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. ßehemoth- twisted, mutated, more virulent than ever-has found them already. The fragile armistice between the rifters and their one-time masters has exploded into all-out war, and not even the legendary Lenie Clarke can take back the body count.
Billions have died since she loosed ßehemoth upon the world. Billions more are bound to. The whole biosphere came apart at the seams while Lenie Clarke hid at the bottom of the sea and did nothing. But now there is no place left to hide. The consequences of past acts reach inexorably to the very floor of the world, and Lenie Clarke must return to confront the mess she made.
Redemption doesn't come easy with the blood of a world on your hands. But even after five years in pitch-black purgatory, Lenie Clarke is still Lenie Clarke. There will be consequences for anyone who gets in her way-and worse ones, perhaps, if she succeeds...
ß Seppuku concludes the final act (begun in ß ß-Max ) of Peter Watts's chilling and powerful Rifters series.
For five years (since the events recounted in Maelstrom 0, she and her bionic brethren (modified to work in the rift valleys of the ocean floor) have hidden in the mountains of the deep Atlantic. The facility they commandeered was more than a secret station on the ocean floor. Atlantis was an exit strategy for the corporate elite, a place where the world's Movers and Shakers had hidden from the doomsday microbe ßehemoth-and from the hordes of the moved and the shaken left behind. For five years "rifters" and "corpses" have lived in a state of uneasy truce, united by fear of the outside world.
But now that world closes in. An unknown enemy hunts them through the crushing darkness of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. ßehemoth- twisted, mutated, more virulent than ever-has found them already. The fragile armistice between the rifters and their one-time masters has exploded into all-out war, and not even the legendary Lenie Clarke can take back the body count.
Billions have died since she loosed ßehemoth upon the world. Billions more are bound to. The whole biosphere came apart at the seams while Lenie Clarke hid at the bottom of the sea and did nothing. But now there is no place left to hide. The consequences of past acts reach inexorably to the very floor of the world, and Lenie Clarke must return to confront the mess she made.
Redemption doesn't come easy with the blood of a world on your hands. But even after five years in pitch-black purgatory, Lenie Clarke is still Lenie Clarke. There will be consequences for anyone who gets in her way-and worse ones, perhaps, if she succeeds...
ß Seppuku concludes the final act (begun in ß ß-Max ) of Peter Watts's chilling and powerful Rifters series.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
January 10, 2014
I struggled with this one. On the one hand, it's actually quite good, for the most part; it's the book (or part of the book) where the Rifters series goes into full-on postapocalyptic mode, and Watts does that quite well. Much of the book is a grind, but it's a nastily evocative grind. Given that Watts had to split βehemoth into two parts it's a quick read (and he's right, this one and β-Max are different enough that the split isn't super jarring) but there's one unexplored question that kind of nagged at me a bit by the end. Which isn't more abrupt than plenty of books like this, really.
And then... SPOILERS, obviously, but this is the book of this series I could least recommend with a clear conscience. The villain is ultimately who the reader probably suspects it was going to be, from β-Max if not before, but I don't think we needed to have him capture, rape, and torture (presumably to death, although that's left unclear, for fuck's sake) another character. Watts' writing in those sequence doesn't feel prurient to me, but I was wincing throughout, and again, this stuff doesn't actually hit any personal triggers for me. I guess I appreciate him not soft pedalling how and why this guy is so horrible (and the twist, the reason said villain doesn't end the world at the end, is queasily compelling), but those sequences still just feel needless. The character he tortures could have figured out what was going on in other circumstances, or that information could have been presented to the reader in some other way. Watts is partly making a point about the mechanistic nature of human personality (one I don't fully agree with, which means he no doubt would think I'm softheaded, which is fine) but I really feel like the good parts of that aspect of the book could be wholly preserved without the rape and mutilation in this book. I'm strongly tempted to rate this one lower; those scenes almost made me put the whole thing down. I'm glad I didn't, ultimately, but note that this book is not going to be pleasant or even healthy for some people to read. If Watts had found some other angle to take with that character, not only would I be more able to recommend the series (and this book would probably be a solid four stars for me), but it would be way more compelling. You've got a guy who's willing to damn the whole world just because he's conscience has been disconnected and it lets him keep doing whatever he wants... and what he wants is literally the most predictable, cliche thing in the book. Completely separate from any distaste I felt reading those passages, the character ultimately feels like a failure of imagination and a huge missed opportunity.
For example, look at the thought process Ken Lubin ultimately uses to defeat him; now there's a case of Watts taking his ideas and playing with them to both interesting and disquieting effect. Lubin is a great example of what's good about the dark parts of the Rifters series, mainly because his urges and psychology and actions feel more convincingly worked out. I am glad I read the series, and I think Watts is a hell of a writer; I'll be thinking about Lubin and Lenie Clarke for a long time. As far as postapocalypses go, this is a very well done one, and I think the ending is really well done. I could only recommend this one with some pretty heavy caveats, though.
And then... SPOILERS, obviously, but this is the book of this series I could least recommend with a clear conscience. The villain is ultimately who the reader probably suspects it was going to be, from β-Max if not before, but I don't think we needed to have him capture, rape, and torture (presumably to death, although that's left unclear, for fuck's sake) another character. Watts' writing in those sequence doesn't feel prurient to me, but I was wincing throughout, and again, this stuff doesn't actually hit any personal triggers for me. I guess I appreciate him not soft pedalling how and why this guy is so horrible (and the twist, the reason said villain doesn't end the world at the end, is queasily compelling), but those sequences still just feel needless. The character he tortures could have figured out what was going on in other circumstances, or that information could have been presented to the reader in some other way. Watts is partly making a point about the mechanistic nature of human personality (one I don't fully agree with, which means he no doubt would think I'm softheaded, which is fine) but I really feel like the good parts of that aspect of the book could be wholly preserved without the rape and mutilation in this book. I'm strongly tempted to rate this one lower; those scenes almost made me put the whole thing down. I'm glad I didn't, ultimately, but note that this book is not going to be pleasant or even healthy for some people to read. If Watts had found some other angle to take with that character, not only would I be more able to recommend the series (and this book would probably be a solid four stars for me), but it would be way more compelling. You've got a guy who's willing to damn the whole world just because he's conscience has been disconnected and it lets him keep doing whatever he wants... and what he wants is literally the most predictable, cliche thing in the book. Completely separate from any distaste I felt reading those passages, the character ultimately feels like a failure of imagination and a huge missed opportunity.
For example, look at the thought process Ken Lubin ultimately uses to defeat him; now there's a case of Watts taking his ideas and playing with them to both interesting and disquieting effect. Lubin is a great example of what's good about the dark parts of the Rifters series, mainly because his urges and psychology and actions feel more convincingly worked out. I am glad I read the series, and I think Watts is a hell of a writer; I'll be thinking about Lubin and Lenie Clarke for a long time. As far as postapocalypses go, this is a very well done one, and I think the ending is really well done. I could only recommend this one with some pretty heavy caveats, though.
May 13, 2021
Trigger warnings: some brutal sadism, which I could have done without. Why did the author have to describe it in gory detail?
Other than that, this is well done.
Watts was almost prescient about global pandemics, although his vision of the future is much more grim, devastating, and widespread than even COVID-19 has been. He depicts an utterly devastated hellscape populated by psychopaths and other dysfunctional and traumatized people and it’s chillingly believable.
Other than that, this is well done.
Watts was almost prescient about global pandemics, although his vision of the future is much more grim, devastating, and widespread than even COVID-19 has been. He depicts an utterly devastated hellscape populated by psychopaths and other dysfunctional and traumatized people and it’s chillingly believable.
September 18, 2022
3.0 stars
I loved the first book but the later books in series aren't working for me. The story has just gotten unedited and these final books need to be edited down.
I loved the first book but the later books in series aren't working for me. The story has just gotten unedited and these final books need to be edited down.
February 5, 2018
Wholly satisfying, logical ending to this fantastic series. While you lose the intimacy with the characters that you had with the first book, the story grows exponentially in size and scope. Everyone is pretty much who they are going to be by now so there are no new revelations or changes on that front but there are some plot twists and turns and enough going on that the blanks got filled in and all was wrapped up to my personal satisfaction. This is not pretty, nor is it optimistic but it is imaginative and multi-layered in execution and a lot of fun overall.
September 17, 2019
So, I read Peter Watts's debut novel "Starfish" back in the day and then read the sequel "Maelstrom" but then never finished the series. This was mostly because the publisher split what would have been the last book, "Behemoth" into two (ridiculously and after much protest by the author). Then, somewhat incomprehensibly, the publisher made both books almost impossible to find in the USA. Maybe they were trying to save us from the nihilistic and deterministic science that fuels the author's creativity? I really don't know. But I randomly found this in a used bookstore more than a decade later and decided to read it even knowing that I hadn't read the first half of "Behemoth".
About a hundred pages into the book, I knuckled under and bought the first half, but couldn't actually make myself stop reading this one and decided that I'd come back to the first half of the third book (are you following this?) despite the author's warning at the beginning to read the first half... first.
So, having read "Blindsight" and "Echopraxia", I found the science in this book to be relatively understandable, at least at an intuitive level that allowed me to follow the plot. Watts likes his books crunchy, but just by the fact that these books are more than a decade old, the rest of the field has caught up with him. I could read about mutated AI viruses, flamethrowing drones and an RNA based life form that has contaminated the whole of North America (and realistically, the rest of the world is doomed too) and not feel overwhelmed. It wasn't quite as difficult as the altered brain physiology and chemistry of his later work, and lots of other SF authors are writing about microtech, AI and apocalyptic scenarios these days- he fits right in.
It had been long enough that the only character I held firmly in my head was Lenie Clarke. She was the bioengineered, psychologically altered antiheroine who decided to watch the world burn in the first half of this series. In this book, she repents. The guilt of having started the apocalypse (or having sped it up, depending on how you look at it) is what drives her. Watts does love his damaged characters- her companion is a truly fucked up assassin/spy who has had his conscience programmed out of him and who has been engineered to be a sadist, the better to give him a Pavlovian response that will motivate him to complete his gruesome missions. But let it be said that the true villain is even worse.
I was interested in reading Lenie and Lubin's odyssey across a coastline that is one of the worst dying worlds that I've seen in a long time. Scientists are siloed in highly secure compounds, trying to figure out an answer to the Behemoth microbe that our entire biome has no way to fight. Meanwhile, your average folks are making do as best they can, succumbing to various infections and cancers accelerated by Behemoth, hopelessly outclassed by the tech that the elites possess, scrounging what survival they can.
The big question of this book: is it possible to stop Behemoth, and are the powers that be trying to stop it or accelerate it? The answer leads Lenie and Lubin to the true villain, a person originally forged to make the tough decisions that most humans can't because their monkey brains get in the way. Unfortunately, this person is a sadist who enjoys raping people to death in the nastiest ways possible, which gets in the way of his mission statement.
This was where the book lost me. Nihilistic apocalypse, okay, I was ready for that. The torture-rape that was spread out over chapters- a bit gratuitous. We get it, Watts, this is a BAD MAN. I perhaps didn't need to read exactly how bad. So, higher marks for the setting and ideas, minus for the squick factor. Be warned- I am not kidding about the squick.
About a hundred pages into the book, I knuckled under and bought the first half, but couldn't actually make myself stop reading this one and decided that I'd come back to the first half of the third book (are you following this?) despite the author's warning at the beginning to read the first half... first.
So, having read "Blindsight" and "Echopraxia", I found the science in this book to be relatively understandable, at least at an intuitive level that allowed me to follow the plot. Watts likes his books crunchy, but just by the fact that these books are more than a decade old, the rest of the field has caught up with him. I could read about mutated AI viruses, flamethrowing drones and an RNA based life form that has contaminated the whole of North America (and realistically, the rest of the world is doomed too) and not feel overwhelmed. It wasn't quite as difficult as the altered brain physiology and chemistry of his later work, and lots of other SF authors are writing about microtech, AI and apocalyptic scenarios these days- he fits right in.
It had been long enough that the only character I held firmly in my head was Lenie Clarke. She was the bioengineered, psychologically altered antiheroine who decided to watch the world burn in the first half of this series. In this book, she repents. The guilt of having started the apocalypse (or having sped it up, depending on how you look at it) is what drives her. Watts does love his damaged characters- her companion is a truly fucked up assassin/spy who has had his conscience programmed out of him and who has been engineered to be a sadist, the better to give him a Pavlovian response that will motivate him to complete his gruesome missions. But let it be said that the true villain is even worse.
I was interested in reading Lenie and Lubin's odyssey across a coastline that is one of the worst dying worlds that I've seen in a long time. Scientists are siloed in highly secure compounds, trying to figure out an answer to the Behemoth microbe that our entire biome has no way to fight. Meanwhile, your average folks are making do as best they can, succumbing to various infections and cancers accelerated by Behemoth, hopelessly outclassed by the tech that the elites possess, scrounging what survival they can.
The big question of this book: is it possible to stop Behemoth, and are the powers that be trying to stop it or accelerate it? The answer leads Lenie and Lubin to the true villain, a person originally forged to make the tough decisions that most humans can't because their monkey brains get in the way. Unfortunately, this person is a sadist who enjoys raping people to death in the nastiest ways possible, which gets in the way of his mission statement.
This was where the book lost me. Nihilistic apocalypse, okay, I was ready for that. The torture-rape that was spread out over chapters- a bit gratuitous. We get it, Watts, this is a BAD MAN. I perhaps didn't need to read exactly how bad. So, higher marks for the setting and ideas, minus for the squick factor. Be warned- I am not kidding about the squick.
January 17, 2016
When the author's note at the start of the book makes it quite clear that he's unhappy with his own results, I think we can all agree that it's never a good sign. And, sure enough, Behemoth is a structural mess - choppy in some parts, and far too bloated in others, prone to much repetition and navel-gazing in the slow bits while rushing far too fast through the limited action sections.
Watts pulls yet another time-shift at the start of this one: he's returned the rifters to the deep sea again (however briefly), but this time it's five years since the events of Maelstrom - Honestly, almost from the moment this book began, I kept getting sidetracked by these basic epidemiological questions - and given the depth of forethought and knowledge of biology that Watts has already demonstrated in the previous books of this series, I can't imagine why he suddenly gave up on preserving authenticity now.
On the whole, too many things are exasperating about this book to make it an enjoyable read of any sort; goodness knows the length isn't helping, but only so much can be blamed on a publisher's poor decisions before we have to acknowledge that the author just plain failed. And the difference between this book(s?) and Starfish is absolutely day and night. Some of it has to do with tone, I think: where Starfish was slow-paced but methodical, finding beauty and philosophy in the nightmarish, Behemoth lumbers awkwardly between distantly-spaced plot points, exaggerating the gruesome to no particular effect other than shock value (the repeated torture scenes are absolutely tasteless, do nothing to round out Desjardins' character in any way, and I'm still puzzled how ). Suddenly there's a fleet of new characters, with many faceless rifters angry at the non-rifters for unexplained reasons, and the "big bads" of Behemoth and Seppuku are never introduced as clearly as I would have preferred -- the latter especially just kind of pops out of nowhere, then lies ignored until a novel's-length later. This is just inexcusably poor plotting; there is no way around it.
Equally, one of the things I found most endearing about Starfish - Watts' skill, much like Alastair Reynolds', for tossing in references to places and events remaining forever offscreen, over time building a sense of a complete world beyond the story without having to halt the action to explain it - has tipped in completely the other direction in Behemoth. In a normal series, you would have started receiving explanations about some of those hinted events and places by the second or third books; but because Watts skips around in time and place between books, there's never any chance to settle down. At least Maelstrom attempted to keep up at least some of the continuity; but in Behemoth, the five-year timeskip completely destroys all of that. And the newly-hinted material isn't explained much better, either: there is what sounds like could be a fascinating plotline about Africa's adoption of Lenie Clarke as a saint-figure as a way of lashing back at the countries which had once benefited at the expense of their oppression... but it's mentioned maybe once in the story, and only elaborated upon in the References section at the end. What a shame!
And that, maybe, is the sentiment I'd use to describe the entire book: a total shame. I don't know if Starfish was the impossibly-good fluke or if Behemoth was the tremendously-bad one, but... that's a long way to fall, and I'm all the more sorry to see it. Better luck next time, Mr. Watts; but for now I think I'll stick with your shorter works instead. At least with those, I can get out of the trainwreck's way before wasting quite so much time.
Watts pulls yet another time-shift at the start of this one: he's returned the rifters to the deep sea again (however briefly), but this time it's five years since the events of Maelstrom - Honestly, almost from the moment this book began, I kept getting sidetracked by these basic epidemiological questions - and given the depth of forethought and knowledge of biology that Watts has already demonstrated in the previous books of this series, I can't imagine why he suddenly gave up on preserving authenticity now.
On the whole, too many things are exasperating about this book to make it an enjoyable read of any sort; goodness knows the length isn't helping, but only so much can be blamed on a publisher's poor decisions before we have to acknowledge that the author just plain failed. And the difference between this book(s?) and Starfish is absolutely day and night. Some of it has to do with tone, I think: where Starfish was slow-paced but methodical, finding beauty and philosophy in the nightmarish, Behemoth lumbers awkwardly between distantly-spaced plot points, exaggerating the gruesome to no particular effect other than shock value (the repeated torture scenes are absolutely tasteless, do nothing to round out Desjardins' character in any way, and I'm still puzzled how ). Suddenly there's a fleet of new characters, with many faceless rifters angry at the non-rifters for unexplained reasons, and the "big bads" of Behemoth and Seppuku are never introduced as clearly as I would have preferred -- the latter especially just kind of pops out of nowhere, then lies ignored until a novel's-length later. This is just inexcusably poor plotting; there is no way around it.
Equally, one of the things I found most endearing about Starfish - Watts' skill, much like Alastair Reynolds', for tossing in references to places and events remaining forever offscreen, over time building a sense of a complete world beyond the story without having to halt the action to explain it - has tipped in completely the other direction in Behemoth. In a normal series, you would have started receiving explanations about some of those hinted events and places by the second or third books; but because Watts skips around in time and place between books, there's never any chance to settle down. At least Maelstrom attempted to keep up at least some of the continuity; but in Behemoth, the five-year timeskip completely destroys all of that. And the newly-hinted material isn't explained much better, either: there is what sounds like could be a fascinating plotline about Africa's adoption of Lenie Clarke as a saint-figure as a way of lashing back at the countries which had once benefited at the expense of their oppression... but it's mentioned maybe once in the story, and only elaborated upon in the References section at the end. What a shame!
And that, maybe, is the sentiment I'd use to describe the entire book: a total shame. I don't know if Starfish was the impossibly-good fluke or if Behemoth was the tremendously-bad one, but... that's a long way to fall, and I'm all the more sorry to see it. Better luck next time, Mr. Watts; but for now I think I'll stick with your shorter works instead. At least with those, I can get out of the trainwreck's way before wasting quite so much time.
June 8, 2025
Seppuku ties up most but not all ends of the Rifters Trilogy. Looking back at the whole cycle I can say it was a very interesting read. The overall story arc reminds me of Blidnsight and The 3-Body Problem alike. There are a lot of dilemmas, characters confronted with choosing between bad and worse. It has some very interesting and prolific characters (none of them you'd want to be friends with), only the main one - Lenny - started to get on my nerves just a little bit while approaching the end. There's a lot of scientific backing too, too deep for me to judge it's authenticity (especially biology), but very interesting and conclusive.
I just wish the worldbuilding throughout the series would have been a bit more descriptive. It's so vague it could fit into the same universe as Blindsight and Echopraxia, even though I'm not aware of any stated connection - but the world seems to be very similar in facts and tonality. Blindsight was already very gritty and dark, but the Rifters Trilogy definitely takes it a step further.
I just wish the worldbuilding throughout the series would have been a bit more descriptive. It's so vague it could fit into the same universe as Blindsight and Echopraxia, even though I'm not aware of any stated connection - but the world seems to be very similar in facts and tonality. Blindsight was already very gritty and dark, but the Rifters Trilogy definitely takes it a step further.
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March 19, 2025The Rifters series can be a tad challenging. The breadth of scientific concepts, from microbiology, chemistry, marine biology, ecology, marine physics, neuroscience and even AI, makes the scope of these novels are intense.
Watts never holds your hand. Rare is an info dump. And at times the plot and big picture is a fragmented puzzle that you have to resolve the pieces together yourself.
And most challenging of all, are the characters themselves. I loved the characters from a story perspective, but they are far from loveable. Lubin has to be one of my top ten characters in a series of all time. The characters are dark, borderline personalities that you somehow end up rooting for or against (you're never quite sure who the villain is).
This final book particularly has some disturbing, trigger warning shit that hits your gut hard. But it also contains plenty action set pieces and the action is masterfully written and cool as hell.
I recommend these books to anyone who is tired of space exploration always being a central focus of their hard sci Fi.
Watts never holds your hand. Rare is an info dump. And at times the plot and big picture is a fragmented puzzle that you have to resolve the pieces together yourself.
And most challenging of all, are the characters themselves. I loved the characters from a story perspective, but they are far from loveable. Lubin has to be one of my top ten characters in a series of all time. The characters are dark, borderline personalities that you somehow end up rooting for or against (you're never quite sure who the villain is).
This final book particularly has some disturbing, trigger warning shit that hits your gut hard. But it also contains plenty action set pieces and the action is masterfully written and cool as hell.
I recommend these books to anyone who is tired of space exploration always being a central focus of their hard sci Fi.
October 20, 2020
A decent conclusion. I mightve liked it more if i didnt kill the momentum by ignoring it with ten pages left
September 1, 2018
I was going to object to some of more gruesome parts but then we switched to mitochondria and evolution of eukaryotes and that brought it back to 5/5, as far as I was concerned.
August 6, 2024
Very good conclusion to the series with better (or more) character and story development. For the most part enjoyed the whole series but have to get past some explicit brutal sadism.
December 15, 2021
low mark because of tortures
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 13, 2018
This is the same rating I gave to the first part of this novel (for the same reasons).
April 13, 2025
seppuku felt less like a sci-fi novel and more like an endurance test. you know it’s rough when the only consistent emotion you feel is despair, not because of the plot, but because you have to keep reading. that said i'm proud of myself for surviving this book.
this is the character assassination book:
- lenie clarke, once the vengeful meme queen of the abyss, is now reduced to a sarcastic glambot with mood swings. she’s there to remind people they suck and then promptly vanish from relevance. she's no longer that bitch. meanwhile,
- lubin the other bland protagonist takes the wheel and drives us straight into...nowhere. i still don't know who he is and i couldn't care less.
- desjardins on the other hand has gone full edgelord. his chapters read like wattpad horrorporn fanfiction. not that i've read any! and i'm 100% positive that's peter's kink.
the pacing is like like being served a series of weird minimalist gourmet dishes for 300 pages designed to stimulate your hunger like at "The menu", and then, towards the end, everything is suddenly shoved down your throat without having time to swallow. i could have missed that Atlantis was destroyed because it happened so fast...
and that ending...the book just ragequits with no conclusion. guess the deadline got too close for comfort here. feels like it was submitted at 23:59. also, who edited this thing? did anyone? next time put it through chatgpt at least...
i dunno man this one bummed me out a bit. i just hope firefall doesn't suffer the same fate.
this is the character assassination book:
- lenie clarke, once the vengeful meme queen of the abyss, is now reduced to a sarcastic glambot with mood swings. she’s there to remind people they suck and then promptly vanish from relevance. she's no longer that bitch. meanwhile,
- lubin the other bland protagonist takes the wheel and drives us straight into...nowhere. i still don't know who he is and i couldn't care less.
- desjardins on the other hand has gone full edgelord. his chapters read like wattpad horrorporn fanfiction. not that i've read any! and i'm 100% positive that's peter's kink.
the pacing is like like being served a series of weird minimalist gourmet dishes for 300 pages designed to stimulate your hunger like at "The menu", and then, towards the end, everything is suddenly shoved down your throat without having time to swallow. i could have missed that Atlantis was destroyed because it happened so fast...
and that ending...the book just ragequits with no conclusion. guess the deadline got too close for comfort here. feels like it was submitted at 23:59. also, who edited this thing? did anyone? next time put it through chatgpt at least...
i dunno man this one bummed me out a bit. i just hope firefall doesn't suffer the same fate.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 25, 2014
Behemoth: Seppuku is the first sequel in this series that I enjoyed as much as the original Starfish. I can’t put a finger on exactly what elevated this book over books two and three, but I found myself more invested in the story and I had trouble putting the book down. When I did put it down, I often continued to think about the story off and on until I was able to pick it up again. In fact, this morning I woke up half an hour before my alarm went off and started thinking about the book. I ended up picking it up and reading it until it was officially time to wake up. Usually, if I wake up early, I just go back to sleep!
As with the third book, there were very few passages of a primarily technical nature. The book was more story and character-based, and I think it moved at a faster pace than the earlier books. The ending was decent but not amazing. It was what I would call a “hopeful” ending (with plenty of unhappiness mixed in), but it definitely didn’t wrap everything up. I had a few unanswered questions after I’d finished it and there were some small threads that were left hanging. Overall, I would have liked a more extensive ending. However, I have to admit it’s pretty rare for me to feel completely satisfied with an ending, especially if I like the story. If I really liked a story, I almost always want more details before the story comes to an end.
As with the third book, there were very few passages of a primarily technical nature. The book was more story and character-based, and I think it moved at a faster pace than the earlier books. The ending was decent but not amazing. It was what I would call a “hopeful” ending (with plenty of unhappiness mixed in), but it definitely didn’t wrap everything up. I had a few unanswered questions after I’d finished it and there were some small threads that were left hanging. Overall, I would have liked a more extensive ending. However, I have to admit it’s pretty rare for me to feel completely satisfied with an ending, especially if I like the story. If I really liked a story, I almost always want more details before the story comes to an end.
March 30, 2009
I read a CC licensed electronic version of Behemoth as originally conceived (i.e., containing both Book 3 and Book 4), downloaded from Watts' website. In the real world, his publisher made him split the novel in two (which wasn't really a bad idea, considering the ridiculous length of the novel in its original form, and the fact that it cleaves so naturally by setting), which is how it appears in GR -- and how I'll submit this review, however reluctantly...
...out of the water and onto the bruised, battered, and charred surface, five years after Lenie Clarke ushered in the North American apocalypse with her hate-filled tour of pestilence (as described in Maelstrom). The conclusion to the Rifters series is flawed by a predictable ending, but the road there is peppered with such vividly disturbing imagery that it's hard to fault Watts for that. It's almost as if he figured the ending wasn't really that important, anyway. And maybe he's right.
Watts is clearly a very talented writer. But his choice of subject matter will probably forever keep him constrained to the fringes. I DO NOT recommend these books to anyone who finds (exhaustively non-erotic) depictions of sexual sadism inappropriate subject matter for the genre. In fact, it's hard for me to figure out who, exactly, I can recommend it to without coming across like some sort of depressing pervert. And if I have this problem as a reader, I can only imagine how hard it is for the guy who wrote this stuff.
Man, I'd love to meet him someday.
...out of the water and onto the bruised, battered, and charred surface, five years after Lenie Clarke ushered in the North American apocalypse with her hate-filled tour of pestilence (as described in Maelstrom). The conclusion to the Rifters series is flawed by a predictable ending, but the road there is peppered with such vividly disturbing imagery that it's hard to fault Watts for that. It's almost as if he figured the ending wasn't really that important, anyway. And maybe he's right.
Watts is clearly a very talented writer. But his choice of subject matter will probably forever keep him constrained to the fringes. I DO NOT recommend these books to anyone who finds (exhaustively non-erotic) depictions of sexual sadism inappropriate subject matter for the genre. In fact, it's hard for me to figure out who, exactly, I can recommend it to without coming across like some sort of depressing pervert. And if I have this problem as a reader, I can only imagine how hard it is for the guy who wrote this stuff.
Man, I'd love to meet him someday.
January 10, 2015
I'm reviewing ßehemoth as a whole, here, not just Seppuku. Deal with it.
I wanted to love this book, I really did. There are ideas presented in this book that I absolutely adore - the nature of Seppuku, the mutability of 'personality,' the concepts of good and evil - and I love the way the themes intertwine and reinforce each other. I love the setting in a general sense - it reminded me a lot of a functional post-apocalypse world like The Postman, an already dead world that hasn't quite been able to admit it yet.
What I didn't love, however, were the dichotomous settings & stories (being published as two books will do that), the occasional slow points in pacing, and the awful, awful things described about a certain character. I understand the role these things played in the overall story and I get that a certain feeling would be lost without them, but they still detracted from my enjoyment of the book as a whole. After the incredibly immersize and wonderful world of Starfish and the breakneck urgency of Maelstorm, this was... anti-climactic.
The speculative science was the real star of this novel - of this series, even - so, by the time the character arcs were resolved, it felt as if the novel was just going through the motions, finishing things because we were ready for them to be finished, not because we were holding our breath in anticipation. It's not bad by any stretch, but it's not really as fantastic as I was hoping it would be.
Of course, maybe that was the point. Things happen, life goes on.
I wanted to love this book, I really did. There are ideas presented in this book that I absolutely adore - the nature of Seppuku, the mutability of 'personality,' the concepts of good and evil - and I love the way the themes intertwine and reinforce each other. I love the setting in a general sense - it reminded me a lot of a functional post-apocalypse world like The Postman, an already dead world that hasn't quite been able to admit it yet.
What I didn't love, however, were the dichotomous settings & stories (being published as two books will do that), the occasional slow points in pacing, and the awful, awful things described about a certain character. I understand the role these things played in the overall story and I get that a certain feeling would be lost without them, but they still detracted from my enjoyment of the book as a whole. After the incredibly immersize and wonderful world of Starfish and the breakneck urgency of Maelstorm, this was... anti-climactic.
The speculative science was the real star of this novel - of this series, even - so, by the time the character arcs were resolved, it felt as if the novel was just going through the motions, finishing things because we were ready for them to be finished, not because we were holding our breath in anticipation. It's not bad by any stretch, but it's not really as fantastic as I was hoping it would be.
Of course, maybe that was the point. Things happen, life goes on.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 15, 2012
I read ß-Max and Seppuku as a single book, so I'll submit a single review of ßehemoth.
ßehemoth concludes the Rifters trilogy, and it does resolve pretty much everything, but there were a few areas where it didn't work for me quite as well as its predecessors. Being the third book, the major "idea" reveals have already taken place -- the nature of the Rifters, of ßehemoth itself, the 'lawbreakers, the head cheeses, etc. The surprises therefore come almost entirely from plot twists and shocking torture scenes, rather than from new ideas. The torture scenes were a little over the top, even for me. The plot twists were a strange mix of overly telegraphed in advance and seemingly random or unnecessary. A number of seemingly pivotal events turn out to be pointless, which makes me wonder why I needed to spend so much time reading about them earlier on. The book might have been less slow to get going if some of these events were cut or glossed over.
ßehemoth was still good, and I'm glad I've finally polished off the Rifters trilogy, but it didn't quite rise to the level of Starfish or Maelstrom.
ßehemoth concludes the Rifters trilogy, and it does resolve pretty much everything, but there were a few areas where it didn't work for me quite as well as its predecessors. Being the third book, the major "idea" reveals have already taken place -- the nature of the Rifters, of ßehemoth itself, the 'lawbreakers, the head cheeses, etc. The surprises therefore come almost entirely from plot twists and shocking torture scenes, rather than from new ideas. The torture scenes were a little over the top, even for me. The plot twists were a strange mix of overly telegraphed in advance and seemingly random or unnecessary. A number of seemingly pivotal events turn out to be pointless, which makes me wonder why I needed to spend so much time reading about them earlier on. The book might have been less slow to get going if some of these events were cut or glossed over.
ßehemoth was still good, and I'm glad I've finally polished off the Rifters trilogy, but it didn't quite rise to the level of Starfish or Maelstrom.
April 1, 2007
The very last book of the Rifters Trilogy, this pulls various storylines back together. An enjoyable conclusion to an impressive array of ideas, and a bit more of an action-oriented story than the previous books. All together, this does give a good sense of closure to the world that Peter Watts has speculated and proposed, and the story that is slowly revealed throughout is both disturbing and far too possible.
May 25, 2022
Pretty awful stuff. I am beginning to think that Si-Fi writers are perverts. There wasn't any need to have a sexual predator as one of the characters. And to make it worse, after describing his heinous exploits (I think it may be depravity shared by Mr. Watts), he is simply killed at the end. At a minimum, he should have been tortured in kind by the women he abused.
Mr. Watts is clearly an educated individual, but his storyline was tedious.
Mr. Watts is clearly an educated individual, but his storyline was tedious.
August 24, 2012
Four stars until the last twenty pages, and then it didn't stick the landing for me.
February 28, 2019
Was gonna be three stars until the horrifically over-the-top rape/torture stuff showed up. Watts should be fucking ashamed of himself.
February 6, 2021
Okay so you've got these transhuman badasses, right? And there's one of them that's like a vengeful demon, your heroine, total badass. But then there's this other guy, who's like an action hero with the same powers but he's like... allowed to be a psychopath while she reforms by befriending a teen, or whatever. It's set in something like a full-ecology pandemic so it's okay to revisit now, but I'm not sure why you would want to get this far in if you had other things to do with your time. Also there's a bunch of torture porn in this that's pretty gratuitous. Like I am not sure whether Watts is kinky or like, ashamedly so but not in the community and has internalized anti-kink that manifests in this obsession with artificial consciences and variations on posthuman sadism. Genuinely disappointed to not have the faceoff between the Ultimate Sadist and the Ultimate Masochist without the Other Masochist. Proud I finished it anyway.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 20, 2025
i'm an idiot for finishing this series. i should've listened to people's warnings and just left it at book 1, which is imperfect of course but still had some charm to it. the sequels get rid of everything that i even slightly enjoyed about the first book and just barreled forward with the worst most vile parts. peter watts, u might be a genius for writing blindsight but u are a shitty person for writing these sequels and i hate you. i need to go bleach my brain from the incel man of it all.
April 30, 2018
It’s the end of the world as we knew it. A new virus has been unleashed and an old virtual virus seeks a new lease of life. In this all action, thrilling conclusion to the rifters trilogy, we’re back on land. Old enemies and allies shift and move inexorably towards a final showdown. I had to concentrate to keep up, but for the ideas, for the science, for the ride: a high four plus rating.
July 7, 2018
It didn't capture me. Maybe it is not the best idea to read six Peter Watts books in a row. Although I didn't have a problem with Starfish or Maelstrom. But Behemoth, to me, read like a slightly better than bog standard "save the world from evil disease" story. Not as interesting as the other Peter Watts plots. If I'm honest, I read about fifty pages then started skimming.
May 24, 2020
2.5 stars
Lubin and Clarke, a great duo, hampered by a cliched and boring plot. Anticlimactic ending, honestly my attention started wandering around the time where the great reveal (aka the most obvious thing ever - the big bad is their friend whoop whoop) cause it was really weak. So Seppuku burns itself out? It beats Behemoth and then changes a human? Okay? Frankly I was disappointed.
Lubin and Clarke, a great duo, hampered by a cliched and boring plot. Anticlimactic ending, honestly my attention started wandering around the time where the great reveal (aka the most obvious thing ever - the big bad is their friend whoop whoop) cause it was really weak. So Seppuku burns itself out? It beats Behemoth and then changes a human? Okay? Frankly I was disappointed.
February 15, 2021
About the whole trilogy. Great concept and meticulous technicality. But the text... its form... structure... uh. Like reading a Morse Code. You still getting the idea, but the process is tedious.
I could not write review better than author himself wrote in the epilogue: "Failure to converge. Confidence limits exceeded. Further predictions unreliable."
I could not write review better than author himself wrote in the epilogue: "Failure to converge. Confidence limits exceeded. Further predictions unreliable."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 10, 2024
Keeping up with the previous books
Apparently the last two books in the series didn't do as well as the earlier two - I found I liked them all!
Again, it might help if you have a bio background - I found those ideas really interesting while the stories were still compelling. A gritty but very believable SF story!
Apparently the last two books in the series didn't do as well as the earlier two - I found I liked them all!
Again, it might help if you have a bio background - I found those ideas really interesting while the stories were still compelling. A gritty but very believable SF story!
August 17, 2017
This seemed the weakest of the series, barely any insight into the characters by comparison, Lennie was nearly an extra, beyond her interaction with Taka she seemed almost non-existent. The ending felt rushed and I felt the whole stories behind B-Max and Seppuku could have been expanded much more.
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