Blindsight
Ratings272
Average rating3.8
Blindsight has some interesting ideas, but ultimately I think it was too interested in being weird and different. The ending was completely unsatisfying.
Was listening to the audiobook so I wasn't able to contemplate on any of the ideas. I need to read this book first I think.
EDITORIAL REVIEW: The Hugo Award–nominated novel by “a hard science fiction writer through and through and one of the very best alive.” —The Globe and Mail* Two months have past since a myriad of alien objects clenched about the Earth, screaming as they burned. The heavens have been silent since—until a derelict space probe hears whispers from a distant comet. Something talks out there: but not to us. Who should we send to meet the alien, when the alien doesn't want to meet? Send a linguist with multiple-personality disorder and a biologist so spliced with machinery that he can't feel his own flesh. Send a pacifist warrior and a vampire recalled from the grave by the voodoo of paleogenetics. Send a man with half his mind gone since childhood. Send them to the edge of the solar system, praying you can trust such freaks and monsters with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find—but you'd give anything for that to be true, if you knew what was waiting for them. . . . ** Peter Watts lives in Toronto, Canada. The Hugo Award–nominated novel by “a hard science fiction writer through and through and one of the very best alive.”—The Globe and Mail* Two months have past since a myriad of alien objects clenched about the Earth, screaming as they burned. The heavens have been silent since—until a derelict space probe hears whispers from a distant comet. Something talks out there: but not to us. Who should we send to meet the alien, when the alien doesn't want to meet? Send a linguist with multiple-personality disorder and a biologist so spliced with machinery that he can't feel his own flesh. Send a pacifist warrior and a vampire recalled from the grave by the voodoo of paleogenetics. Send a man with half his mind gone since childhood. Send them to the edge of the solar system, praying you can trust such freaks and monsters with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find—but you'd give anything for that to be true, if you knew what was waiting for them. “The genius of Blindsight is that its author has been clever enough to build a story that demonstrates [his] case . . . Much of the narrative pleasure of Blindsight comes from a conjoined experience of doubled discovery: as we gradually get to understand the nature of the crew . . . we find ourselves simultaneously beginning to get some sense of the alien species orbiting Ben in something . . . that Watts describes in terms that evoked, for me, some great, granulated, anfractuous rat king of shrikes multiplied a thousandfold from the simple single shrike out of Dan Simmons's Hyperion, which so goosed my midbrain . . . It is a sign of the pervasive toughness of Blindsight that its human readers can take pleasure in [the] message, because what the scramblers say to us in the end is, ‘Shut up.'”—The New York Review of Science Fiction “Trained as a marine biologist, Watts is completely at ease using his richly developed characters to spin possibilities and theories on the cutting edge of science. His dense idea storms may slow some readers, but most will sail through the tech-heavy patches purely for the thrill of seeing what happens next.”—Gwenda Bond, The Washington Post “This is a a very ambitious story, very successfully done. As a novel, it's gripping enough that my last-weekend glance to fill in details became a complete rereading. Rare that, but this is a rare book.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune “A brilliant piece of work, one that will delight fans of hard science fiction, but will also demonstrate to literary fans that contemporary science fiction is dynamic and fascinating literature that demands to be read.”—The Edmonton Journal ** “Challenging . . . fascinating and rewarding. Watts' all-but-declared literary ambition is to be a first-class hard science fiction writer on the sophisticated literary level of Gregory Benford or Arthur C. Clarke. And with Starfish, Maelstrom, Behemoth, and now Blindsight, he demonstrates that he can achieve it.”—Asimov's Science Fiction *magazine** “Watt's dark, suspenseful, nightmarish vision of intelligent life in a hostile universe is remorseless in its outlook and unflinching in its conclusions.”—SF Site* “Extremely thought-provoking, taking its premise to the ultimate conclusion, showing that the alien without might by closely related to the alien within.”—Interzone “A first-contact novel notable for the utter remorselessness of it commitment to its central premise.”—Vector “A fascinating first-contact tale. This is a provocative exploration of the nature of human consciousness and what it means to be human.”—Romantic Times BOOKreviews “A swarm of Fireflies lighted alien objects in the sky now orbits Earth, speaking among themselves and ignoring human attempts at communication. In desperation, a group consisting of a linguist with multiple personality disorder, a biologist more machine than man, a paleogenetic vampire, and a pacifist is sent to confront this unfathomable alien presence. Watts (aehemoth) continues to challenge readers with his imaginative plots and superb storytelling. A good choice for most sf collections.”—Library Journal “Alien-contact tale in which humans are at least as weird as the aliens. Eighty years from now, denizens of Earth become aware of an alien presence when the sky fills with bursts of light from dying Fireflies, tiny machines that signal to a supergiant planet far beyond the edge of the solar system. With orders to investigate, the vessel Theseus carries an artificial intelligence as its captain, along with expedition leader Jukka Sarasti, a brooding, sociopathic and downright scary vampire; Isaac Szpindel, a biologist so mechanized he can barely feel his own skin; the Gang of Four, a schizophrenic linguist; curiously passive warrior Major Amanda Bates; and observer-narrator Siri Keeton, a synthesist with half a brain (the remainder destroyed by a virus) enhanced by add-ons and advanced algorithms. They meet a huge alien vessel that calls itself Rorschach and talks eagerly but says nothing of consequence. Indeed, the Gang of Four suspects that the alien voice isn't truly sentient at all. As Keeton begins to hallucinate, Sarasti orders a team to break into the alien vessel despite its lethal radiation levels. Still unable to decide whether the aliens are hostile, Sarasti devises a plan to capture one of the creatures that apparently thrive within Rorschach's peculiar environment. They succeed in grabbing two specimens. These scramblers, dubbed Stretch and Clench, resemble huge, bony, multi-limbed starfish. They have no brains but show evidence of massive information-processing capability, which brings Theseus' crew to the crucial question: Can intelligence exist without self-awareness? Watts carries several complications too many, but presents nonetheless asearching, disconcerting, challenging, sometimes piercing inquisition.”—Kirkus Reviews “Canadian author Watts explores the nature of consciousness in this stimulating hard SF novel, which combines riveting action with a fascinating alien environment. In the late 21st century, when something alien is discovered beyond the edge of
Blindsight – Did Not Finish:
I tried and tried and tried, but I was so bored I gave up around one-third of the way in. The story moves slowly, filled with meaningless introspection, and the plot is so sparse that it feels like nothing really happens.
Not my cup of tea.
In a distant future where humanity's reach has extended into the cold void of space, Peter Watts' Blindsight invites us into the ultimate existential riddle. A crew of post-human misfits, led by a vampire commander (WTF but it works), ventures into the unknown to confront an alien intelligence that defies comprehension. What unfolds is not just a clash of species, but a confrontation with the very nature of consciousness itself.
Watts crafts a narrative that probes the fragile boundary between intelligence and awareness, between being alive and truly knowing it. In a universe where evolution favors efficiency over understanding, is consciousness a gift or a fatal flaw? “We're not thinking machines,” Watts reminds us, “we're feeling machines that think.” This book strips away the comforting illusions of free will and identity, leaving us bare before the abyss. It asks us to consider the price of progress when the mind itself becomes a tool, an artifact of natural selection with no inherent meaning.
Published in 2006, during a time of rapid technological advancements and growing debates on artificial intelligence, Blindsight feels eerily prescient. Watts, a marine biologist turned sci-fi prophet, constructs his story with scientific precision and philosophical depth. His characters, more machine than human, echo fractured, post-human landscapes. In Watts' universe, the future is a dark reflection of our present fears—about AI, about the unknown, about ourselves.
With the cold precision of a scalpel, Blindsight dissects what it means to be sentient. It's not just a question of seeing but of understanding what we see—or not seeing at all, which is its own form of awareness. Watts dares us to face the truth that in the grand scheme of the cosmos, consciousness might be nothing more than a cosmic joke, a fluke of evolution that blinds us to the real nature of reality.
Wow, what an interesting read! Peter Watts packs so many themes and ideas in this book; it was hard to follow at times but I’d recommend this to anyone who like hard sci-fi.
I think this will need another read-through to fully process. It's not dense, but it is highly philosophical and complex.
Book 1 in the Firefall series. A far future spaceship ride with rollercoaster energy.
Siri Keeting has severe epilepsy as a child. He undergoes surgery that removes one hemisphere of his brain to control the seizures. Many years later he crews on a spaceship as an observer/reporter because his unique brain function means he can stay emotionally distant from unexpected strange events. And those unexpected events keep piling up. The crew are all augmented in some way, as Siri has also been (after all he's got half a skull they can put stuff into), The ship's captain is inbuilt AI, the nominal commander is a resurrected vampire (so able to make harsh decisions), the linguist has four people's swapable intelligences in her brain, another crew member is in love with one of her personalities, and then there's some rather dangerous aliens. Perhaps I should have mentioned them earlier. Watts increasingly focuses in on what it means to have intelligence vs self awareness. The pace of the action speeds up as the story progresses into a frightening conflict, as does Watts' demands on the reader as his arguments deepen.
One caution. I got about fifty pages into the book and had to look up the Wiki page to sort out who these characters were. The writing is very dense and the people tend to get a bit submerged.
This book gets a lot of raves, and I did enjoy it. But it wasn't all that amazing compared to the hype it gets. I think this will be an especially powerful book if you are significantly neurodivergent, which is “all the rage” with readers these days. I swear everyone thinks of themselves as neurodivergent. Whatever.
As it comes to the story... the characters are interesting. They could literally all be fleshed out better. The circumstances the crew find themselves in is a bit hard to follow at times and I think that part could be more clearly written.
3.5 stars.
Not sure if I'll follow up with the next in series.
Blindsight - 1/5*
Won't even bother with Echopraxia. Immensely disappointed, the review for Blindsight is under that book.
Very dense and very weird. A challenging read with big ideas, explored in a unique way.
Our Dehumanized Future
Blindsight (Firefall #1) by Peter Watts
It is the late 21st century and humanity is already being pushed off the stage. Artificial intelligence has rendered a great many human beings excess to requirements. Those that want to remain employed have to resort to bizarre augmentations and brain surgeries to stay competitive. As a result, biologists have transformed themselves in order to interface directly with sensors and distribute the minds across the equipment. Linguists may undergo brain surgery to divide their brains into different units so that new minds can share the body and process information in parallel. Synthesists exist to translate bleeding edge science down to a common denominator that can be understood by non-specialists, but the synthesists never actually understand the substance of what they are translating.
The rest of humanity is either on welfare or is moving to “heaven,” a virtual reality for their minds, while their bodies are warehoused.
In short while the human race may be holding out, notwithstanding a demographic collapse in the birth rate, it has been divided into two camps: “ghosts in the machine” without causal effect on reality and zombies carrying out assignments without, or with limited, human awareness.
And that was before the aliens took a snapshot of Earth in the Firefall.
As a result of this mysterious event, Siri Keeton awakens on the ship “Theseus” from five years of hibernation in the Oort cloud facing an immense alien structure being constructed around a sub-Jovian gas giant. Siri is a synthesist who lost the values of empathy as a child when half of his brain was removed to stop epileptic seizures. He is a high-functioning autistic who interacts with other people by miming their behavior. He's accompanied by a linguist who brain has been reconstructed to house four other persons, a cyborg military specialist, and a biologist whose control over his own body has been compromised by his augmentation for working through his instruments. There is also a vampire captain.
Wait. What???
Apparently, vampires were a real thing in human prehistory. They were smarter, stronger, and faster than humans and required a chemical in human flesh to survive. In order to avoid overpredation on humans, they learned to hibernate for decades. Unfortunately, they had a brain glitch that sent them into seizures when they saw a right angle, which never happens in nature but which became common when humans began building cities. So, they went extinct, but by the magic of genetics, their genes were reconstructed and the species was resurrected (with the need for human flesh omitted, but the predator instincts and the “cruciform glitch” kept.)
I thought that was the weirdest and unnecessary element of the book when it was introduced, but as the book progressed it made sense in the context of the book's themes of a dehumanized near future.
The crew attempts to communicate with the strange structure, which calls itself “Rohrschack,” but nobody's home.
Wait. What??? No one's home and it gave itself a name.
At this point, the author Peter J. Watts moves into a lot of really great “philosophy of mind” stuff.
It turns out that whoever is building Rohrschack is a “Chinese Room.” The Chinese Room thought experiment was developed by philosopher John Searle to explain that AI that passes the Turing Test may not actually be sentient. The AI system may just be operating according to a very advanced recipe of giving outputs in response to different inputs which make sense to the recipient of the outputs but which the system does not comprehend or understand. The parallels to Siri are apparent, but, also, there are parallels to vampires, who exist in a “half-dreaming” state closer to their predatory role, where they constantly calculate cost and benefits without a moral overlay.
The Theseus crew eventually discovers living entities about the Rohrschack which should not be intelligent but which are clearly much smarter than humans on an individual basis. This leads to speculation among the crew that the aliens have sacrificed self-consciousness as unnecessary to the evolutionary imperative of survival.
While all this philosophy is going on, the action never stops. This book is a page turner. I became invested in the characters for all their autistic weirdness.
Ultimately, the book concludes with the unsettling notion that perhaps consciousness is a losing proposition and the vampires are the future.
This is a very good book
Great book. I really enjoyed the philosophical argument put forward about consciousness and humanities place in the universe.
> “It matters,” she said, “because it means we attacked them before Theseus launched. Before Firefall, even.”... She leaned forward, bright-eyed. “Imagine you're a scrambler, and you encounter a Human signal for the very first time.”
So the central premise is interesting and it's very well illustrated by narrating the story and background from the view of a person with a particular brain condition that has been imperfectly rectified by future medicine.
Wow! So much technology presented I couldn't keep up. This will require a second read to grasp some of the concepts. Alot of it is hard to see in one's mind; the ships for example.
The story moves along nicely. There are cuts back-n-forth between history look-back and current day that does trip you up a bit and leave you wondering who is talking and how did they get on the ship! Then you figure out a character is remembering something that adds depth to the story.
This book isn't perfect, but man did it fucking work me over.
Another book I've had on my list for awhile due to an r/horrorlit thread and I went in almost completely blind. I barely ever read book synopses (I feel like they almost always tell me exactly the things that I DON'T want to know about a book and exactly none of the things I DO want to know. I tend to care a lot more about themes/mood/vibes/style etc. than hard plot beats) so I came into this one with some vague expectations of cosmic horror + vampires in space.
Basically I expected pulp. This is not pulp. This is heady, deep, philosophical hard sci-fi with a nihilistic horror bent. This is like if you fed Liu Cixin a diet of Liggoti and Cioran before sending him off to write ‘The Dark Forest'. And like Liu's ‘The Dark Forest' (and Ligotti's ‘The Conspiracy Against the Human Race'), this is the kind of book that added a fundamentally new perspective to how I view the universe and my place in it, and so despite any flaws that it may have in execution, it'll be one of the books I think about regularly for the rest of my life.
Speaking of execution, all of my complaints about ‘Blindsight' fall distinctly in that category. The book, ESPECIALLY the first half, relies heavily on overbearing sci-fi nonsense jargon. I can appreciate some goofy jargon in my sci-fi, but so much of the book has passages that are like “Franklin-Borson radiation poured over my cortical synapse receptors and sent fireworks of vorpal pixels cascading across my neuro-displays. I shouted, “Fourth dimensional proton plasma shouldn't have this kind of resonance decoherence!” I would later find out that it was because the attack was a fifth dimensional electro-plasmic neutron stream”. I know this is hyperbole, but it really felt that way at times.
When ‘Blindsight' really hits its stride is when all the themes start collapsing down into each other like a brilliant philosophical Matryoshka doll and you get completely blindsided with its horrifying final argument. No spoilers, but holy shit, it is wonderful. Exactly the flavor of deep cosmic nihilism I like in my philosophical arguments. Real strong Ligotti vibes. As the kids say, I'm shook.
Hope the sequel is as good. It has some ridiculously big shoes to fill though..
Blindsight by Peter Watts is probably the densest sci-fi book I've read in recent times. According to the author, despite being a hard sci-fi novel, this book gets suggested to many undergraduate neuroscience college students, as a recommended read. After reading the book, I can see why. This book is about mankind's first contact with an alien lifeform and humans try to understand whether the being they have encountered is hostile or not. This book dives deep into the topics of what it is to be sentient, conscious, and intelligent. This book is probably going to be very hard to digest even for native speakers. The story is told from the perspective of a protagonist whose brain is half machine half organic. Naturally, the plot is told in a very fractured, dry, and factual way which creates a difficult to understand yet “amazingly enjoyable when you get it” read; This is what I love about sci-fi books. Blindsight is going to stay for a very long time in my mind. It is a diamond cutter in terms of sci-fi hardness; I strongly recommended this book.