by Peter Watts
Deepwater biology
The deep-sea creatures I described pretty much as they exist; if you don't believe me read "Light in the Ocean's Midwaters", by B. H. Robison, in the July 1995 Scientific American. Or Deep-Sea Biology by J.D. Gage & P.A. Taylor (Cambridge University Press, 1992). Or Abyss by C.P. Idyll (Crowell Co., 1971); it's old, but it's the book that hooked me back in Grade 9. Although the fish we drag up from great depths are generally pretty small in real life, gigantism is not unheard of among some species of deepwater fish. Back in the 1930s, for example, the deepwater pioneer William Beebe claimed to have spotted a seven-foot viperfish from a bathysphere.
I found lots of interesting stuff in The Sea - Ideas and Observations on Progress in the Study of the Seas. Vol. 7: Deep-Sea Biology (G. T. Rowe, ed., 1983 from John Wiley and Sons). In particular, the chapter on biochemical and physiological adaptations of deep-sea animals (by Somero et al.)—as well as Biochemical Adaptation, a 1983 book from Princeton University Press (Hochachka and Somero, Eds.)—got me started on deep-sea physiology, the effects of high pressure on neuronal firing thresholds, and the adaptation of enzymes to high pressure/temperature regimes.
Spreading-zone tectonics/geology
A good layperson's introduction to the coastal geology of the Pacific northwest, including a discussion of midocean ridges such as Juan de Fuca, can be found in Cycles of Rock and Water by K. A. Brown (1993, HarperCollins West). "The Quantum Event of Oceanic Crustal Accretion: Impacts of Diking at Mid-Ocean Ridges" (J.R. Delaney et al., Science 281, pp222-230, 1998) nicely conveys the nastiness and frequency of earthquakes and eruptions along the Juan de Fuca Rift, although it's a bit heavy on the technobabble.
The idea that the Pacific Northwest is overdue for a major earthquake is reviewed in "Giant Earthquakes of the Pacific Northwest", by R. D. Hyndman (Scientific American, Dec. 1995). "Forearc deformation and great subduction earthquakes: implications for Cascadia offshore earthquake potential" by McCaffrey and Goldfinger (Science v267, 1995) and "Earthquakes cannot be predicted" (Geller et al., Science v275, 1997) discuss the issue in somewhat greater detail. I used to live quite happily in Vancouver. After reading these items, I moved to Toronto.
The absolute coolest source for up-to-the-minute information on hydrothermal vents, however, is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) web pages. Everything's there: raw survey data, research schedules, live maps, three-dimensional seaquake animations, and recent publications. To name but a few. Start at http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents and go from there.
Psionics/Ganzfeld Effects
The rudimentary telepathy I describe actually made it into the peer-reviewed technical literature back in 1994. Check out Does Psi Exist? Replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer by Bem and Honorton, pages 4-18 in Vol 15 of the Psychological Bulletin. They got statistical significance and everything. Speculations on the quantum nature of human consciousess come from the books of Roger Penrose, The Emporer's New Mind (Oxford University Press, 1989) and Shadows of the Mind (Oxford, 1994).
Smart gels
The smart gels that screw everything up were inspired by the research of Masuo Aizawa, a Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, profiled in the August 1992 issue of Discover magazine. At that time, he'd got a few neurons hooked together into the precursors of simple logic gates. I shudder to think where he's got to now.
The application of neural nets to navigating through complex terrain is described in "Robocar" by B. Daviss (Discover, July 1992.), which describes work being done by Charles Thorpe of (where else) Carnegie-Mellon University.
ßehemoth
The theory that life originated in hydrothermal vents hails from "A hydrothermally precipitated catalytic iron sulphide membrane as a first step towards life", by M.J. Russel et al. (Journal of Molecular Evolution, v39, 1994). Throwaway bits on the evolution of life, including the viability of ribosomal RNA as an alternative genetic template, I cadged from "The origin of life on earth" by L.E. Orgel (Scientific American, October 1994). ßehemoth's symbiotic presence within the cells of deepwater fish steals from the work of Lynn Margulis, who first suggested that cellular organelles were once free-living organisms in their own right (an idea that went from heresy to canon in the space of about ten years). Once I'd stuck that idea into the book, I found vindication in "Parasites shed light on cellular evolution" (G. Vogel, Science 275, p1422, 1997) and "Thanks to a parasite, asexual reproduction catches on" (M. Enserinck, Science 275, p1743, 1997).
Sexual abuse as an addictive stimulus
I first encountered the idea that chronic abuse could be physiologically addictive in Psychological Trauma (B. van der Kolk, ed,, American Psychiatric Press 1987). False Memory Syndrome is explored in The Myth of Repressed Memory : False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse by E. Loftus & K. Ketcham (St. Martin's Press 1996).
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Acknowledgments
I put all these words together myself. However, I shamelessly exploited anyone I could to put them together properly.
At the start: Starfish began as a short story. Barbara MacGregor, then of the Domestic Violence Lab at the University of British Columbia, critiqued early drafts of that story.
At the end: David Hartwell bought the manuscript; he and Jim Minz editted it. Of course they have my gratitude, but I hope their reward extends beyond such cheap verbiage; I hope Starfish sells well and makes all of us lots of money. (The copy you're holding is a start. Why not pick up others and hand them out to Jehovah's Witnesses at street corners?)
In between:
Glenn Grant took it upon himself to approach David Hartwell on my behalf when I was too chickenshit to do it myself. Major David Buck of the New Zealand Army gave me the benefit of his expertise on explosives, nuclear and otherwise. I was a bit disturbed to learn just how much thought some people have put into the effects of nuclear explosions on the seabed.
When I wanted to check out the geology of spreading and earthquake zones, I posted a question to a couple of geological Usenet groups in lieu of actual research. This netted me a lot of advice from people I've never met and probably never will: Ellin Beltz, Hayden Chasteen, Joe Davis, Keith Morrison, and Carl Schaefer gave me pointers and references on vulcanism, plate tectonics, and (in one case) the length of time it would take a nuclear submarine to get shot zit-like from the mouth of an active volcano after being swallowed into a deep-sea subduction zone. John Stockwell of the Center for Wave Phenomena (Colorado School of Mines) was especially forthcoming, sharing formulae and tables that described earthquakes in nice, graspable, "Hiroshima equivalents". I'm tempted to never do my own research again.
I'm also tempted to blame all these nice people for any technical mistakes you find in the following document, but of course, I can't. It's my book. I guess that means they're my mistakes too.
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