Blindsight by Peter Watts (Bakker fans need this)

[Francis Buck]

So I was recommended this book by a rather smart fellow on the The Second Apocalypse forums several months ago. I read it and was kind of blown away by it.

I mention fans of Bakker in the thread title because, despite being a semi-near-future sci-fi novel about first contact with an alien species, the content and general jist of the story is very much the sort of thing that I think any fan of Bakker's output would be interested in (including the non-TSA stuff).

Bear with me: This is a story taking place near the turn of the 22nd century, wherein the Singularity has kinda/sorta/maybe happened and we have discovered that "vampires" were a real thing: a predatory offshoot of humans that we later resurrected through cloning. The captain of the ship that has this first encounter with aliens is a resurrected vampire. Sounds kinda stupid, right?

It isn't.

This is some pretty damn hard sci-fi, at least in my experience with the genre. In particular it deals with neuroscience, astronomy, biochemistry, and more than a dash of linguistics (with scatterings of many other fields). The prose isn't incredible or anything, but it's more than serviceable. In other words, it's never a distraction, and sometimes it's great. It feels like a looser, more modern Asimov to me. And the aliens themselves? I won't say anything other than that they're some of the most genuinely alien aliens I've seen in fiction. To the point that the book is actually scary at points -- not from any stereotypical horror cliche, but just because of the sheer concepts at play here that really make you think about reality and life in general. It's existential-horror.

I've just finished my first re-read of the book, and it did nothing but cement my esteem for it. I've yet to read anything else by the author, but I intend to do so now. I'd love to hear some perspectives from other folks that have read it, or Peter Watts' other material.

ETA: And yeah, my forum title has something to do with this book.

ETA2: I hadn't realized it when I made the topic, but a helpful poster pointed out that the book was actually made available for free.

[peterbound]

Watts's stuff has been pimped out here before, and is pretty well regarded.

Thanks for the heads up, and enthusiasm, but you're not breaking any new ground here. Have you read the sequel yet?

[Francis Buck]

Watts's stuff has been pimped out here before, and is pretty well regarded.

Thanks for the heads up, and enthusiasm, but you're not breaking any new ground here. Have you read the sequel yet?

Started Echopraxia yesterday, intended to mention it in the thread. I did a search for Peter Watts but then the search never really seems to work for me (I.E. I don't know how to use it effectively?).

[peterbound]

Started Echopraxia yesterday, intended to mention it in the thread. I did a search for Peter Watts but then the search never really seems to work for me (I.E. I don't know how to use it effectively?).

It's not you, that thing sucks.

Just know that he's well thought of around here. It's good to bring him up every once and a while so people don't forget how awesome he is.

We should post about his getting arrested at the Canadian boarder as well. Let me see if I can find that one.

[unJon]

Awesome book. Really cool ideas well executed. Made me think for awhile. Liked sequel also, not quite as good, but still good.

Eta: since you made the Bakker connection, he and Bakker are friends and I believe Bakker has some posts about Watts on his blog. And for the trifecta tie-in, Watts was the most vocal author defender of Bakker when the ROH stuff went down with R Scott n

[peterbound]

I haven't started the sequel yet. Hope it's at least alright.

[polishgenius]

The fact that Watts has made it available online for free is reason enough to give it a try.


There's a lot to love, but it didn't quite come together for me the way it evidently has for a lot of other people. I found it really good but not great.

[Sci-2]

There's a lot to love, but it didn't quite come together for me the way it evidently has for a lot of other people. I found it really good but not great.

Yeah, I got this book awhile back but never finished it. The vampire thing never came together for me.

Maybe I'll give it another go since it's free.

[Calibandar]

It's not you, that thing sucks.

Just know that he's well thought of around here. It's good to bring him up every once and a while so people don't forget how awesome he is.

We should post about his getting arrested at the Canadian boarder as well. Let me see if I can find that one.

Always enjoyed that little story. Here is one pertinent post about it from his blog.

http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=1186

[Yohn]

You could also have a read of the 'Rifters' trilogy. The whole thing is available via the Creative Commons license on his website.

[Yersinia]

I read Blindsight and Echopraxia, and I enjoyed them both, although I preferred Blindsight. It had a first-person narrator who really grew on me during the course of the book.

Echopraxia had a less appealing PoV character and a very bleak ending, but some things from the first book were fleshed out a bit more, so it was worth reading.

[Richard]

Watts is awesome - the Cormac McCarthy of SF. Probably no other author in genre I'd regard as highly, and precious few period.

NB - his books pull off that finest of tricks; they actually improve their initial impact on re-reading. Especially true of Echopraxia, which is superdense with ideas.

[peterbound]

Watts is awesome - the Cormac McCarthy of SF. Probably no other author in genre I'd regard as highly, and precious few period.

NB - his books pull off that finest of tricks; they actually improve their initial impact on re-reading. Especially true of Echopraxia, which is superdense with ideas.

Not sure I'd go that far.

He's alright, but there are a lot better out there in the field.

Gene Wolfe being my top choice.

[David Selig]

I loved Blindsight, but Echopraxia is not working for me so far. Maybe it's the vampires, the only weak element of Blindsight IMO, who have a much bigger role in the next novel (at least up to where I've made it).

[red snow]

Watts is awesome - the Cormac McCarthy of SF. Probably no other author in genre I'd regard as highly, and precious few period.

NB - his books pull off that finest of tricks; they actually improve their initial impact on re-reading. Especially true of Echopraxia, which is superdense with ideas.

It was your blogpost about the books that persuaded me to buy a copy. Haven't got round to reading it yet but seems like a few others here like it

[Francis Buck]

Oh wow, I had no idea the book was available for free, that's pretty cool. Updated the OP.

[Francis Buck]

So I finished Echopraxia the other night. It was interesting, but in my opinion not as good as Blindsight. It had less compelling characters and the overall plot was a little too...fuzzy, I guess. This is at least in part due to the fact that a lot more stuff was just going over my head, though. Specifically, I'm still not clear on two main things (spoilers):

Firstly, what exactly was the slime mold? Is it like the "base" organism from which the scrambers/Rorshach emerge from? Did Rorshach hijack the Icarus beam to send the quantum specs for the slime mold back to Icarus? I just don't really understand what the connection between the slime mold and the scramblers is.

Secondly, I don't totally get what was happening with the main character at the very end of the book. Clearly he had been part of the Bicamerals' (and, tangentially, the vampires) scheme from the beginning. He was being neurologically rewritten...to what end, exactly? I feel like I need to go over that bit of the story again.

I dunno, like I said I felt as though a lot of it was going over my head. Even though I didn't totally understand all of the science in the Blindsight, I did feel like I understood the jist of the story and plot. I can't really say the same for all of Echopraxia.

As Richard mentions above, the book is just dense as hell with ideas. I'm probably going to need to read it again.

[Yersinia]

So I finished Echopraxia the other night. It was interesting, but in my opinion not as good as Blindsight. It had less compelling characters and the overall plot was a little too...fuzzy, I guess. This is at least in part due to the fact that a lot more stuff was just going over my head, though. Specifically, I'm still not clear on two main things (spoilers):

Firstly, what exactly was the slime mold? Is it like the "base" organism from which the scrambers/Rorshach emerge from? Did Rorshach hijack the Icarus beam to send the quantum specs for the slime mold back to Icarus? I just don't really understand what the connection between the slime mold and the scramblers is.

Secondly, I don't totally get what was happening with the main character at the very end of the book. Clearly he had been part of the Bicamerals' (and, tangentially, the vampires) scheme from the beginning. He was being neurologically rewritten...to what end, exactly? I feel like I need to go over that bit of the story again.

I dunno, like I said I felt as though a lot of it was going over my head. Even though I didn't totally understand all of the science in the Blindsight, I did feel like I understood the jist of the story and plot. I can't really say the same for all of Echopraxia.

As Richard mentions above, the book is just dense as hell with ideas. I'm probably going to need to read it again.

My impression was that

the main character was being used as a host body / incubator for the slime mold, or whatever it really was, for the purpose of launching an alien invasion of Earth (using him as a "back door"), and Valerie took advantage of that in order to help vampires as well.

However, I also found it difficult at times to figure out what was supposed to be going on. Either it was meant to be ambiguous, or I just wasn't paying enough attention.

[jurble]

I finished Blindsight yesterday, was a pretty good book.

But the most I got out of it is that I'm apparently a vampire since I could hold both perspectives of the Necker Cube in my head at the same time (it took a few minutes of staring at it, getting it to switch back and forth is easy, and eventually I managed to get both viewpoints sorta superimposed together-y at the same time) . I suppose, by the book's premise then, I'm less sentient than other people ;-(.

[Callan S.]

Always enjoyed that little story. Here is one pertinent post about it from his blog.

http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=1186

Sometimes I toy with writing a story like that scenario - a bit like 'falling down'. The fun bit is that during the court case the prosecuted turns at some point and tells the judge and prosecutor are on trial for their failure to prevent a crime. Sure, all the usual 'contempt of court' stuff. And the prosecuted waits - but more in the way of gathering evidence. And then there's another 'outburst' by the prosecuted and the judge and goes to tell him he'll be imprisoned for contempt of court - but the prosecuted keeps going on. So the judge orders the baliffs to go get him - and that's when the black suits walk in.

Streaming in from either side, they take the baliffs by the arm and cuff them.

The judge calls for more police presence at this - but it turns out there are more black suits. Each call for more police ends up at more black suits turning up.

The whole notion of who is judging slowly gets turned inside out like reaching into an octopus and pulling out its somach from its mouth.

All the people who are okay with executing these laws - suddenly under judgement themselves. It's simply a matter of who has the most martial force.

But their complacency about it being them being who judges...well, it's almost...criminal?

Yeah, probably worth a story...