Behemoth Book One: B-Max
{4.5/5} “It’s not just the skin that rots when you stop coming inside. It’s not just the bones that go soft. Once a rifter goes native, the whole neocortex is pretty much a write-off. You let the abyss stare into you long enough and that whole civilized veneer washes away like melting ice in running water. Clarke imagines the fissures of the brain smoothing out over time, devolving back to some primordial fish-state more suited to their chosen habitat.”
Behemoth Book One: B-Max by Peter Watts, published in 2004
Large sections of the world have been destroyed in an attempt to eliminate Behemoth. But it continues to spread. Lenie Clarke lives near Atlantis, a deep sea station that the corpses built to get away from the world. The corpses thought they would be in charge down there, but Lenie and her fellow rifters are in charge.
This is the sequel to Maelstrom. Note that the “B” in “Behemoth” and “B-Max” is actually the Greek letter beta.
It’s about people who have fought in the past and don’t trust each other, and the ultimate cause of Behemoth’s rampage across the planet.
I’ve read 4 books by Watts.