"Excellent cutting edge science fiction"

Five years ago amphibious cyborg Lenie Clarke unleashed the microbe Behemoth on an unsuspecting world, killing ten million in North America. Lenni and her fellow cyborgs escape the devastation in the ocean depths and are at war with the VIP's who fled to the underwater city of Atlantis. The people of Atlantis and cyborgs make peace when Behemoth finds its way into the underwater city. For the first time in five years Lenie journeys to land accompanied by Ken Lubin to find a way to keep Behemoth out of Atlantis.

Although a vaccine for Behemoth exists, it is in scarce supply so more people die from the microbe and the plagues that follow in its wake. Watchers guard against anyone breaking out of quarantine and many countries want to eradicate North America and thus destroy Behemoth. A new deadly microbe Seppuku is launched as a cure for Behemoth but when it kills the microbe it also infects the host. A watcher, Achilles Desjarding know that Seppuku will eventually die out before killing the host but he doesn't tell anyone because he wants to keep all the power he gained. Lenie and Ken can stop him but it might mean their deaths.

BEHEMOTH: SEPPUKU is the last of the Lenni Clark books and it is just as action-packed and exciting as STARFISH: MAELSTROM and BEHEMOTH: B-MAX. This is a dark gritty speculative fiction novel with the survivors grimly determined to rebuild civilization if Behemoth is eradicated. Lenie knows she can never find redemption but she does her best to save what is left of the North American population. Desjarding is the archetype villain who everyone will love to hate. Peter Watts is writing excellent cutting edge science fiction.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted December 23, 2004

Summary

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 Maelstrom0, 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... ßehemoth: Seppuku concludes the final act (begun in ßehemoth: ß-Max) of Peter Watts's chilling and powerful Rifters series.