Denver Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club

WATERMIND
by
M. M. BUCKNER
Watermind hardback cover Watermind (2008)

Cover photography Getty Images
Cover design by Base Art Co.

Tor hardcover
304 pages (left)

Tor science fiction paperback
353 pages (right)		 Watermind paperback cover
From the back cover of the paperback:
       From storm drains, illegal dumps, and flooded landfills, all of North America's most advanced technology flows down the Mississippi River -- microchips, nanodevices, pharmaceuticals. genetically modified seed -- and lodges in the Louisiana delta.  Out of this mire emerges a self-organized neural net, drifting in the water: The Watermind.  It can freeze, boil, condense, and move -- seemingly at will.
       CJ Reilly, a brilliant, sexy, self-destructive dropout, is working on a crew, cleaning up a pollution spill in Devil's Swamp near Baton Rouge, when she and her new lover, Max, discover the mysterious Watermind.  Reilly's more interested in investigating it than containing it, but when it kills someone and escapes into the Mississippi, there's no longer any question that it must be destroyed before it reaches the ocean.

From the inside flaps of the hardcover:
       From storm drains, illegal dumps, and flooded landfills, all of North America's most advanced technology flows down the Mississippi River -- microchips, nanodevices, pharmaceuticals. genetically modified seed -- and lodges in the Louisiana delta.  Out of this mire emerges a self-organized neural net, drifting in the water: The Watermind.  It can freeze, boil, condense, and move -- seemingly at will.
      CJ Reilly, a brilliant, sexy, self-destructive MIT dropout running away from Cambridge and the suicide of her ironic, emotionally distant father.  She is both infuriating and sympathetic.  She is working as a laborer in Devil's Swamp near Baton Rouge, cleaning up a small pollution spill, when she and her new lover, Max, discover the mysterious Watermind.  Reilly's more interested in investigating it than containing it, but when it kills someone and escapes into the Mississippi, corporations, governments, protesters, the coast guard, and a really wacky underground journalist get involved.  And there's no longer any question that it must be destroyed before it reaches the ocean.  Watermind is Philip K. Dick meets the Blob, a postmodern combination of camp SF motifs and writerly ambition attacking serious subjects.

Read for group discussion on September 23, 2009
RATINGS:
How we each rated this book
Dan - Amy - stack of books 10   Wow! Don't miss it
8-9  Highly recommended
7    Recommended
5-6  Mild recommendation
3-4  Take your chances
1-2  Below average; skip it
0    Get out the flamethrower!
U    Unfinishable or unreadable
-    Skipped or no rating given
Cheri 8 Barb -
Aaron 7 Cynthia -
Jackie - Ron 8
Susan 7.5    
Bibliography:
M. M. Buckner (Mary M. Buckner) is a US hard science fiction writer.

Awards
-- 2005 Philip K. Dick Award for War Surf

Books
-- Hyperthought (2003)
-- Neurolink (2004)
-- War Surf (2005)
-- Watermind (2008)

Links:
Aaron's review of Watermind by M. M. Buckner on Fantastic Reviews
Aaron's review of Hyperthought by M. M. Buckner on Fantastic Reviews
Science Fiction author M. M. Buckner
M.M. Buckner - Wikipedia
Strange Horizons Reviews: Watermind by M. M. Buckner
F & SF: Book Reviews June/July 2009 (includes review of Watermind)
Asimov's Science Fiction: On Books (includes review of Watermind)

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 This page was last updated December 15, 2009