His first novel Starfish (2000) introduced Lenie Clarke, a deep-ocean power-station worker physically altered for underwater living and the main character in the sequels: Maelstrom (2001), Behemoth: ?-Max (2004) and Behemoth: Seppuku (2005). The last two volumes comprise one novel, published split in two for commercial considerations. Starfish, Maelstrom and Behemoth comprise a trilogy usually referred to as "Rifters" after the modified humans designed to work in deep-ocean environments.

His latest book, Blindsight, was released in October 2006 and was nominated for a Hugo Award. The novel has been described by Charles Stross thus: "Imagine a neurobiology-obsessed version of Greg Egan writing a first contact with aliens story from the point of view of a zombie posthuman crewman aboard a starship captained by a vampire, with not dying as the boobie prize." Watts is currently writing two novels: Sunflowers and State of Grace, a "sidequel" about what happened on Earth during Blindsight.

Watts has made his novels and some short fiction available on his website under Creative Commons license. He believes that doing so has "actually saved [his] career outright, by rescuing Blindsight from the oblivion to which it would have otherwise been doomed."

In addition to his novels and short stories, Watts has also worked in other media. He was the Supervising Writer on the animated science fiction film and television project Strange Frame. He also worked briefly with Relic Entertainment on one of the early drafts of the story that would eventually, years later, become Homeworld 2. However, the draft Watts worked on bears little resemblance to the one used for the released game. More recently, he has been recruited by Crytek as a writer and art consultant on Crysis 2. Technological elements from Blindsight have been referenced in the fictional Crysis 2 "Nanosuit Brochure".

The creative director of Bioshock 2 has cited Watts's work as an influence on that game.

On December 8, 2009, Watts was detained at the US/Canadian border by American border guards performing a reportedly random search of the rental vehicle he was driving as he was attempting to re-enter Canada after helping a friend move to Nebraska. Watts is alleged to have assaulted a Customs Officer and was turned over to local authorities to face charges. He was subsequently released, but remained charged with assaulting an officer by the St. Clair County Prosecutor's office. According to a border patrol officer, the authorities used pepper spray to subdue Watts after Watts became aggressive toward officers. According to Watts, he was assaulted, punched in the face, pepper-sprayed and thrown in jail for the night.

Watts' report on the incident, published in his blog, has received publicity on the Internet and the matter has since become somewhat controversial. A local newspaper, the Port Huron Times-Herald, submitted a FOIA request to US Customs and Border Protection to be given the video recording of the incident. On January 14, 2010, the paper reported that the agency denied the request because "it is an ongoing investigation."

On March 19, 2010, after more than five hours of deliberation spanning two days, a jury found Watts guilty of obstructing a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. He faced a maximum sentence of two years in prison. On April 26, 2010 Judge Adair handed down a suspended sentence, and a fine. However, due to immigration laws, Watts' felony conviction prevents him from re-entering the United States.

Novels

Rifters trilogy

1. Starfish (July 1999, Tor Books, ISBN 978-0312868550) ( available online)
2. Maelstrom (October 2001, Tor Books, ISBN 978-0312878061) ( available online)
3. Behemoth (published in two volumes) ( available online)

* Behemoth: ?-Max (July 2004, Tor Books, ISBN 978-0765307217)

* Behemoth: Seppuku (December 2004, Tor Books, ISBN 978-0765311726)

Others

• Blindsight (October 2006, Tor Books, ISBN 978-0765312181) ( available online)

Collections

• Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes (November 2002, Tesseract Books, ISBN 978-1895836745)

Short stories

• "A Niche" (Tesseracts, 1990)
• "Nimbus" (On Spec Magazine, 1994)
• "Flesh Made Word" (Prairie Fire Magazine, 1994)
• "Fractals" (On Spec Magazine, 1995)
• "Bethlehem" (Tesseracts 5, 1996)
• "The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald" (Divine Realms, 1998)
• "Home" (On Spec Magazine, 1999)
• "Bulk Food" (On Spec Magazine, 2000) with Laurie Channer
• "Ambassador" (Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes, 2002)
• "A Word for Heathens" (ReVisions, 2004)
• "Mayfly" (Tesseracts 9, 2005) with Derryl Murphy
• "Repeating the Past" (Nature Magazine, 2007)
• "The Eyes of God" (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume 2, 2008)
• "Hillcrest v. Velikovsky" ("Nature Magazine", 2008)
• "The Island" (The New Space Opera 2, 2009)
• "The Things" (Clarkesworld Magazine, January 2010)

"Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts." -- James Nicoll, SF critic.

The novelette The Island won the Hugo Award for the Best Novelette of 2010 and was nominated for the 2010 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award [1], and for the 2010 Locus Award for Best Novelette [2].

The novel Blindsight was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel of 2007 ( official announcement), was longlisted (on the preliminary ballot) for the Nebula Award in January 2008 ( preliminary ballot), and was shortlisted for the 2010 Geffen Award.

His short story "A Niche" tied with "Breaking Ball" by Michael Skeet for the Aurora Award in 1992.