Blindsight (Firefall, #1)

by Peter Watts

It's been two months 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 to 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 to machinery 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.

• ISBN10: 0765312182
• ISBN13: 9780765312181
• Publish Date: 3 October 2006
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 13 December 2008
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Tor Books
• Edition: Annotated edition
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

Are you reading to dive into a speculative science fiction novel full of aliens, vampires, and monsters? Then it's time to talk about Blindsight by Peter Watts.

Humanity has always known that they are not alone in the universe. But it isn't until a bunch of alien artifacts crash land on earth that this truth is made clear. Still, humanity is ready and willing to send the first humans out to talk to the aliens and make that critical first contact.

The problem is, those aliens weren't trying to reach humanity. They weren't trying to talk to the humans, but rather something else out in that vast blackness that is space.

“Stars, everywhere. So many stars that I could not for the life me understand how the sky could contain them all yet be so black.”

Blindsight is a dense and thought-provoking science fiction novel. I love how it blends so many favorite genres and tropes into one cohesive story. A story that is designed to push the limits and really make you stop and think.

This isn't a light read by any means. Not only does it have a fair amount of intellectual depth, but it raises debates about the self and consciousness. There's a lot to consider, both during and after reading.

When I picked up Blindsight, I was expecting a hard science fiction novel. For the most part, that is what I got. But I also got many different elements that I wasn't expecting, which made for one heck of a reading experience.

Thanks to Tor Books and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

For more reviews check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[pardum]

Watts creates what could be a interesting world, but only gives you glimpses of it, primarily in flashbacks. The parts you do see seems almost like disparate ideas, like concepts that he couldn't fully expand into their own stories, so he jammed it into this one.

The mish-mash feeling is one that is unshakeable throughout the book. The storyline feels like a familiar, though just different enough, first contact story. However, it is interspersed with characters and concepts that are interesting on their own, but makes the story feel cluttered when combined. Perhaps the competing elements could work if Watts wrote a softer sci-fi setting, but his attempts to bring in game theory, among other attempts to make this work as hard sci-fi, only work to further bog down the story.

[adamfortuna]

After hearing this one recommended everyday on Reddit, being a fan of first contact stories and seeing it on the Hugo nominees for it's year, I decided to give it a shot. It's what a lot of people consider "hard sci-fi", but I'm slowly realizing is really just "hard to read" sci-fi. The story is very slow moving, with very little happening, and most of the exploration taking place in the descriptions of events, the types of beings and awareness.

There were a number of interesting ideas presented as well as some interesting characters, but in the end I wasn't able to connect with the story.

[clq]

I picked Blindsight up thinking I'd be reading an immersive sci-fi story. At least I got the immersive part right. I guess it is, technically, also a sci-fi story in so much that the plot takes place in space, but labelling this book as sci-fi would be doing it a disservice.

This really is a heavy book, and keeping up with it is tough. Normally I put this down to lazy/pretentious writing and/or bad storytelling, but in this case it turns out to be more of a mutual agreement between the book and the reader. Yes, you have to struggle to get your head around it, but once your head is around it you realise that the struggle really was the only way to get where the book needed you to be. There is no black or white in this book, no simple characters, no easy answers. The characters are a collection of beings who are all very different, not only from each other, but also from what they once were, and what others may think they should be. The reader only ever sees these characters through the eyes of the narrator, Siri, who should in theory be the most reliable storyteller available. But is he?
So many things are explored in this book, and there are trains of thought that are ethically, emotionally and (for me at least) intellectually challenging. Several times I had to re-read segments, not because I had missed something, but because I just hadn't understood the point or the impact of what I just read. And when I did finally understand, that didn't always make me less confused or unsure of what was going on. This is a book that will keep you guessing and keep you thinking, not only about what is happening in the book, but also about things that go beyond the book itself.

In the end I have no idea whether I'd call Blindsight an inaccessible sci-fi story, or a somewhat accessible work of philosophy. I'm also not sure whether I liked it, or whether I loved it. The sci-fi in this book is solid, but is overshadowed by the great number of thought-inspiring avenues this book ventures into. I can't help but think I might have liked to go a bit further down some of these avenues, not to see them be resolved, but just to explore them a bit more. On the other hand, it's possible that the book very consciously stopped just short of where I would have liked it to go, and instead of "simply" being able to think about things, I also have to continue guessing as to what exactly the author wanted to make me think about.

It feels wrong to say that I enjoyed this book, but I'm very happy to have read it. The feeling Blindsight gave me is comparable to that of working on a very complex problem: solving it can be frustrating, but once it's solved I feel great. Having finished this book I feel like I've almost worked through most of the problem, but without the satisfaction of having resolved it.

Which, considering the book itself, seems about right.