6 ms·
Peter Watts, Rifters trilogy? Especially the second volume.
by dozzie 9y ago
Peter Watts, Rifters trilogy? Especially the second volume.
- nrp 9y agoWatts’ Blindsight and Echopraxia are excellent hard scifi too, though less focused on AI.
- riffraff 9y agois blindsight considered hard SF? It's been a while since I read it, but I don't recall a big focus on science, and some things are pretty explicitly hand waved ("we are lucky they have that issue with right angles")
- sdiupIGPWEfh 9y agoMost reviews I've seen consider it such. Personally, if an author's done enough research to support most every detail with at least one or two scientifically plausible explanations (and has the personal scientific background to vet those ideas), I'll give their work the benefit of the doubt. Between ultimately still just being a work of fiction and the march of scientific discovery, you have to give some small leeway. Regarding the right angle thing, it's been long enough since I've read Blindsight that I can't recall how much was actually explained in the novel vs in the FizerPharm presentation or other material on Watts' website. If you're willing to include extra-textual content, Watts' vampires are given as hard a science fiction treatment as any classic monster is likely to get...
- nabla9 9y agoFizerPharm presentation is really good intro into Blindsight. Watt's is a biologist who gives them plausibility and even ecological place that justifies their traits and behaviour. Hard scifi vampires!
- qbrass 9y agoThe ending was worse. It was basically deus ex machina with nukes.
- ajmurmann 9y agoSome stuff is hand waved. However, the amount of incredible facts about human condition and precaution is incredible and very much core to the story. The back of the book is packed with references to actual research work. It took me a long time though to get myself to buy the book because the book description on Amazon is the worst and sounds like a awful B-movie.
- di4na 9y agoI would say Blindsight is nearly completely about AI. I advise a re-read. Vampires are not really monsters... Just puppets...