Over at the Chicago Tribune, Gary K. Wolfe included the Peter Watts collection Beyond the Rift among his “Sci-Fi roundup: Three new reads to check out.”

Fanfic — short for “fan fiction” — refers to fiction in which fan writers reimagine some of their favorite characters (such as Kirk and Spock from Star Trek) in various compromising situations; the most famous example is “Fifty Shades of Grey,” which began as “Twilight” fanfic. Perhaps the best recent example of how fanfic can actually enrich and deepen its source material is Peter Watts’ “The Things,” which re-imagines John Carpenter’s movie “The Thing” from the point of view of the alien intruder — but adds the sophisticated science of the marine biologist that Watts was trained as. For Watts’ protagonist, the “things” are us, and it makes some telling comments about how badly designed we are as intelligent beings.

This is only part of the repertoire of Watts, a Canadian writer whose formidable reputation is based on a handful of novels and stories.

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He asks the questions that the best science fiction writers ask, but that the rest of us may be afraid to answer.

For more on Beyond the Rift, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Hugh Sicotte. Design by Elizabeth Story.