Peter Watts's first novel starts at the bottom and later works its way up. That is, the action begins in the appalling depths of a Pacific ocean rift, where dysfunctional characters are to run a geothermal power station that taps a hot vent. Meanwhile the strange attraction of the deep virtually explains itself as Herbert invites you to put on Freudian spectacles and contrast the subtly comforting, amniotic embrace of the sea with the shock of emergence into terrible bright emptiness.
Starfish adds a further twist to the notion of quasi-psychotic adaptation to life on the edge.
Thus Lenie Clarke, the first candidate we meet, is a long-time abuse victim who may have become dependent on her victimhood. We realize the perversity of the system when Clarke is retained and Ballard pulled from the job. Clarke is the Right Stuff. Presumably there's an intentional ironic homage here to the authors of The Deep Range and The Drowned World . I was worrying that others of Beebe Station's subsequently expanded team of seven might be called Herbert and Verne, but no.