God bless America

"In some other universe I am warm and content and not looking at spending two years in jail for the crime of having been punched in the face." — Peter Watts, December 11, 2009

Peter Watts, one of my favourite writers — and possibly the best hard SF writer on the scene today — was beaten up and arrested by U.S. border guards while attempting to cross back into Canada on Tuesday. He says (and I believe him) that he was punched, kicked and pepper-sprayed and (of course) has now been charged with "assaulting a federal officer" and faces two years in prison. He's back home in Toronto right now but looking at humongous legal fees.

Cory Doctor at BoingBoing appears to have broken the story, and it includes links both to Watt's own blog and to a Paypal donation address, donate@rifters.com.

Incidentally, Watts has released all of his work under a creative commons license, so if you're not familiar with his stuff you can get yourself all caught up via his site. And I highly recommend that you do.