Starfish

Friedrich Nietzsche used to say that that which did not kill you made you stronger. Nietzsche was an optimist. There are things out there that don't kill you, but which twist you, and turn you into something that isn't quite human anymore. Something which might be better, or might be monstrous. It's hard to tell, some times.

Nietzsche also said that looking into the abyss meant that the abyss looked back at you, and also some things about monsters.

I know Starfish isn't a Nietzschean work, but it sure as hell felt like one. Peter Watts takes a group of scarred, emotionally damaged people, runs them through a bunch of post-human surgeries, and deposits them at the bottom of the ocean, in a high-pressure landscape that's as alien and inhospitable as any extraterrestrial planet. They're supposed to be the only living things down there, but quickly find that's not the case, and before long we're faced with the possibility that the sort of life that's forged in the blackness of the ocean might be completely incompatible with our own. And it might be stronger than us.

Starfish is a bleak, raw, gritty work that mostly likely isn't for everyone, but which I absolutely loved. Looking forward to reading the rest of the series once I've decompressed a bit from this one.