Blurbs: Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes

A modest collection of short stories from Edge Books

Pro

Con

Watts has a painter's way with mood and setting, ...he introduces the reader to a compelling cast of irrational scientists, sensitive bigots, loving murderesses, scheming whales, and living clouds....His answers are sometimes eerie, often upsetting, and readers may disagree with his conclusions, but it's clear that Watts cares deeply about the people whose lives he imagines... Long after closing the book, readers will be arguing and reasoning with the people they met between its pages.

Watts holds a lot of irons to the fire in Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes, and if you discount his white-hot arguments and aperçus because their brand is speculative fiction, well, it's your loss, then, isn't it? The writing is brisk, the sentences short, shot with nouns. These are stories of the future. These are essays of now.

...busily overturn[s] politically-correct ideas and pok[es] holes in the received wisdom of the science fiction genre. Watts wants us to look outside our comfortable circle of light and make the best judgment that we can with our uncertain intellects. It's a message worth heeding.

If anything, the stories here are too thematically consistent, an accusation that verges on praise considering that most anthologies struggle to achieve this type of coherence.

Watts the short-story writer can seem like Greg Egan with more urgency in his voice...a gripping writer. Watts's shorter work carries a unique charge. Peter Watts wants to make us look up, and he succeeds.

Watts is at his strongest when he has a single central topic to sink his teeth into; when he doesn't, he bites his tongue.

This collection is a real gem, one of the best books I've read in a long time, a revelation. It opens new perspectives in the way one can use the scientific motif in fiction…Sinister and brilliant.