Blindsight - Peter Watts

Blindsight

By Peter Watts

  • Release Date: 2006-10-03
  • Genre: High Tech Sci-Fi
4 Score: 4 (From 265 Ratings)

Description

Hugo and Shirley Jackson award-winning Peter Watts stands on the cutting edge of hard SF with his acclaimed novel, Blindsight

Two months since the stars fell...

Two months of silence, while a world held its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn't wish to be met?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there.

Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Reviews

  • Fantastic

    5
    By RagnarDannejskold
    A must read.
  • Better the second (and third) time through

    5
    By ceejeUNDERsiege
    This is one of the most unique books I have ever read. There is a lot of philosophical meat held together by a science fiction plot. What does it mean to be sapient? Consciousness? Language? Neither? On top of these big questions, Watts does a superb job of making the reader feel claustrophobic and uneasy. For me, the main negative aspect is Blindsight can be jarring during the first reading. There are time jumps and digressions, and the descriptions can be confusing. I still haven't picked up the sequel, Echopraxia, but I'll be reading it soon!
  • Haunting visuals

    5
    By Leptonian
    The scenes Peter described have stuck with me long after I've finished the book. In my opinion, this book is required reading for anyone pondering humanity's impact and place in space.
  • 100 Words or Less

    4
    By JRubino
    Some novels are better the second time through – except I was at midway point before realizing I’ve read this novel already. First was a summer vacation past-the-time read. Suddenly, this time around, the memories come back to me: good plot, interesting characters, great pacing. And yet, the revisit is better. Slowing down, focusing more on the subtleties, it’s easier to dive into the novel’s layered rich world. Very realistic, yet unique enough to throw some surprises. It’s good. It’s fun. It’s thought provoking. Even when repeated.
  • Evolutionary psych space opera

    5
    By dawhimo
    And much more. It's like the fabric of reality in a novel form.
  • Not Hard SF

    2
    By chrisleifperry
    Don't judge this book by it's cover. The science is flimsy, to say the least, and Watts takes way more creative liberties than he should for a book that calls itself 'Hard SF'. That said, the story is only incidentally interesting, but the prose is difficult to navigate. You leave with the sense that not only are you not entirely sure what happened, but you're not sure you care.
  • Awesome

    5
    By Shnakepup
    Excellent and thought-provoking book. If you're a fan of hard sci-fi, definitely give this a read.

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