Sienkiewicz received the 1905 Nobel Price in Literature for his "outstanding merits as an epic writer".

The novel follows the developing love between a Christian woman and a Roman Patrician in the time of Nero. The romantic story arc is set against the conflict of the moral systems of the long established Roman Empire and the developing Christianity. Sienkiewicz uses this setting to explore morality and power, and his observations remain relevant today.

The novel is based on extensive historical research and gives a good view of life in those times.

1867 Best Seller.

The novel tells the story of a young boy 'Dick' and his climb to success. Dick has a low start in life growing up on the streets of post civil war New York City but he is honest and hardworking and his loyalty and persistence pay off.

"No one has taken this premise to such pitiless lengths - and depths - as Watts ... In a claustrophobic setting enlivened by periodic flashes of beauty and terror, the crew of Beebe Station come across as not only believable but likeable as they fight for equilibrium against their own demons, one another, their superiors and their remorselessly hostile surroundings."

- The New York Times (Notable Book of the Year)

"The story drives like a futuristic locomotive. It's a hypnotic read, somber and compelling. Best thing I've read in a long time. Peter Watts is an author to watch for."

- Robert Sheckley

"Watts has expanded his focus without diminishing the obsessive drive of his plotting or his prose. [His] vision of the near future offers scant reason for hope. What makes his novel exhilarating instead of depressing is the conviction and control he brings to his material -- I have no hesitation in recommending both books to readers interested in up-to-date science fiction with a seriously paranoid edge.

- The New York Times

"A sequel of considerable merit. [Maelstrom] becomes something quite different from Starfish, and quite fascinating as well... A unique version of cyberspace rendered beautifully with literary skill and a technological sophistication admirably verging on mystical speculation... an excellent and, on balance, quite literarily-successful science fiction novel."

- Norman Spinrad, Asimov's

ßehemoth ... is the most gripping and the most thought-out [book that Watts has yet written] ... Like Greg Egan's "Reasons to be Cheerful", Watts is arguing for an entirely different way of understanding and presenting character, one that reconfigures both how personality is constructed and how actions are to be understood. This seems to me a unique and particularly science-fictional contribution ... For all Watts's dark humor, and for all the incidental thrills of his future, ßehemoth caps a series which is one of the two or three most challenging works I've read in the last decade.

- Graham Sleight, The NY Review of Science Fiction

The 1817 novel tells the story of Frank Osbaldistone sent to the Scottish Highlands to recover a debt owed to his father. While there he encounters Rob Roy MacGregor, the Scottish Robin Hood. Whilst based around an historical figure the story itself is pure fiction. The book was hugely successful when published and has spawned a number of film adaptations.