@emdeesee http://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm Peter Watts has a couple of his old novels CC-licensed, including the one I was mentioned where the virus-infested descendant of the internet is called "the maelstrom". The trilogy starts here: http://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm -- "maelstrom" is the title of the second novel and doesn't seem to figure in the first. Warning: super pessimistic about the future.
Index of all the CC-licensed material: http://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm
@emdeesee second link should have been http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm
@emdeesee ooh blindsight is on the list. I think it's the best known of his novels, and also cool (space vampires! incomprehensible artifacts from beyond the solar system!) http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
@stylus Sweet! Thank you!