7 ms·

Blindsight (2006)

73 points by jxub 8y ago

andyjohnson0 8y ago
An excellent book. Recommended if you like your science fiction hard and bleak.
- mrec 8y ago
  Parent is not kidding about the bleak. Peter Watts is very proud of getting rejected by a Russian publisher for being "too dark". It's a great read though; I can't think of many SF books that can hold a candle to it for sheer density of novel ideas.
  - geoah 8y ago
    I would definitely suggest giving Gregg Egan a shot (start with diaspora maybe?) and Hannu Rajaniemi’s Quantum Thief. Neither are dark but I loved the ideas they mess around with. Same goes for Cicin’s third body problem for how far he takes his ideas.
    - codeulike 8y ago
      Yeah would second that. Diaspora and Quantum Thief are both amazing in very different ways.
    - mrec 8y ago
      Egan IMHO works better in short stories than novels; he's at his best when everything serves to illustrate a single idea. Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies is still one of my all-time faves. Haven't tried 3BP. Haven't even heard of Quantum Thief, but that sounds fun; I might look it out. One classic I keep meaning to reread is Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker. Never surpassed in scope, and you've got to hand it to someone who predicted teledildonics in 1937.
  - thesz 8y ago
    He is not too dark. He just don't know better. ;) This is one of my criticisms of the author who write about, basically, deep planning: he himself didn't have horizon of planning far enough to envision future where horrors he plan to write about have been foreseen and humanity overcome them at their inception and these horrors are removed as class of errors. Imagine PSP/TSP at the level of humanity progress/interaction with other civilizations. Strugatskie brothers came there very closely - they have a civilization which plans progress around possible bad things that can happen [1] (including not having space travel so that tagorians won't fight, I guess). But they also was wrong - they saw this as impeding progress while in effect PSP/TSP-like practices make progress more streamlined and faster. But at least they tried. Watts didn't. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagorians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagorians
    - red75prime 8y ago
      You foresee the horrors, what do you plan to do about them? Nuclear weapons made the road to the world government extremely dangerous, and without the world government enforcement of bans on certain dangerous technologies is practically impossible.
      - thesz 8y ago
        I don't know. You jumped on me out of the blue with this. I have about a week to answer before comments will be closed here and, frankly, I do not have enough free time to think my answer through. So here I am: I don't know. On contrary, Watts, who spend several years thinking his fiction through, should have better answers than what he presented to us.
        red75prime 8y ago
        The Strugatsky brothers didn't offer a solution too. They mostly hand-waved the question. It goes like this, if I am not mistaken: when humanity situation became dire, humans suddenly changed their minds and became one single family.
        8y ago
  - andrewflnr 8y ago
    I second The Quantum Thief. I would also put Revelation Space and, really, any Culture novel above it in terms of sheer novelty level. I've also heard good things about The Fifth Season in that respect. Not that I don't like Blindsight, I just tend to think of it more as a One Big Idea book.
    - mrec 8y ago
      I read Revelation Space many years ago and it made no impression whatsoever; can't remember a single thing about it. I do like the (early) Culture novels, although their most striking novelties (like the the interesting temporal structure in Use of Weapons) aren't always SFnal ideas.
- geoah 8y ago
  Could not agree more. Takes some very interesting concepts and takes them on whole new levels. A definite must read is also the acknowledgments and references in both blindsight and the next part, echopraxia. Acknowledgements are amazing and references insanely interesting and detailed.
saeranv 8y ago
Probably my favorite hard sci-fi book. I haven't found the rest of the author's books (Peter Watts) as good, but I'm hoping his upcoming books change that. The sequel to Blindsight especially is a frustratingly opaque book, with a stilted pace in contrast with Blindsight (although several fascinating concepts are in there, if you take the time to read all the errata on the web in order to properly understand it). Also his blog is worth a read: https://www.rifters.com/crawl/ https://www.rifters.com/crawl/
- thesz 8y ago
  I lived through Chernobyl and I remember that radiation levels precluded robots from operating with radiowave remote controls. What Soviet engineers did is to operate robots with high voltage high current... electrical currents through wires. Everything was pumped up, from camera output to controls. My friend also prototyped well logging equipment with PIC16xxx microcontrollers which also can be operated with (relatively) high voltage (I remember 12V) and associated high currents. Well logging and Chernobyl disaster have one thing in common - high level of radiation. I was reading Blindsight after I read Echopraxia and was already suspicious about author (heck, vampires in E. have contradictory abilities - small musculature and high power, for one example). But when I read about "aperture leackage" I bursted out laughing and threw (PDF copy of) the book to the farthest corner of my room. Engineers from end of 21st century completely forget about experience from the end of 20th century. Nevermind relative cost of high-voltage high-current wires versus optical links. I divide fiction authors as being smart and being smartass (pretending to be smart with various things that look smart and hoping that he will cover things up somehow). Watts is a smartass by my classification as he thinks he can throw so many "ideas" there that reader will be overwhelmed and won't be able to find about true nature of his work. So I will not hold my breath that Watts will improve. Yet I found some concepts from Echopraxia interesting. For example, depth of planning - how intelligence services are planning, how higher intellects would plan. Echopraxia also made me thinking how and where Watts was (in fiction) or will be (in prediction) wrong and why. It raised my interest to long forgotten Noon series by Strugatskie brothers which serve as counterexample to what Watts have in mind. To conclude, Watt's work is conceptually very good science fiction that is very badly executed. This is so because it provokes thinking and argumentation (the sign of good literature) but is also so wrong in details (the sign of bad literature). Okay, I have to stop. Otherwise you will read a complete theory of everything by Serguey Zefirov soon. ;)
pmontra 8y ago
One of the greatest sci fi books ever. I read it again on the long flights back home from vacation this summer. It's been a few years since the last re-read and I think I understood something new. I also suggest its almost sequel, Echopraxia.
- geoah 8y ago
  Hehe love the “almost sequence” part of your comment. I always call it a sequel but your way is spot on. :))
codeulike 8y ago
A great book, one of the best sci-fi books of the 21st century perhaps. And its worth noting that its all online at that page because he released it as Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 I've set my latest novel free under the usual Creative Commons license ... I do this only partly to add data to the ongoing get-rich-by-giving-your-stuff-away experiment. The other reason is that a lot of people seem to be having trouble actually finding the book in brick-and-mortar stores. All the buzz in the world is worth jack-shit if the product isn't readily available. So check it out and go wild. And when your eyes start to fall out from phosphor burn, consider buying an old-fashioned paper version. There should be enough to go around before long: I'm told Blindsight's going into second printing. https://boingboing.net/2006/12/11/peter-watts-blindsig.html https://boingboing.net/2006/12/11/peter-watts-blindsig.html
nabla9 8y ago
Amazing 'teaser trailer' for Blindsight: https://rifters.com/real/progress.htm https://rifters.com/real/progress.htm
- sxp 8y ago
  The PDF copy of the presentation is better: https://rifters.com/real/shorts/VampireDomestication.pdf https://rifters.com/real/shorts/VampireDomestication.pdf
shoo 8y ago
Watts' back catalogue: https://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm https://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm I also enjoyed his earlier trilogy: starfish, maelstrom and behemoth a lot of the short stories are also good. a recurring theme in some of Watt's writing is damage control for failing or broken civilisation -- for example there was an X prize competition last year for short stories starting from the assumption that a plane flight magically jumps 20 years into the future, Watts produced this: https://seat14c.com/future_ideas/37D https://seat14c.com/future_ideas/37D
qnsi 8y ago
So, can someone recommend something similar to this? Last time I read Three Body Problem but got dissapointed

Blindsight (2006)

73 points by jxub 8y ago

andyjohnson0 8y ago

An excellent book. Recommended if you like your science fiction hard and bleak.

mrec 8y ago
Parent is not kidding about the bleak. Peter Watts is very proud of getting rejected by a Russian publisher for being "too dark". It's a great read though; I can't think of many SF books that can hold a candle to it for sheer density of novel ideas.
- geoah 8y ago
  I would definitely suggest giving Gregg Egan a shot (start with diaspora maybe?) and Hannu Rajaniemi’s Quantum Thief. Neither are dark but I loved the ideas they mess around with. Same goes for Cicin’s third body problem for how far he takes his ideas.
  - codeulike 8y ago
    Yeah would second that. Diaspora and Quantum Thief are both amazing in very different ways.
  - mrec 8y ago
    Egan IMHO works better in short stories than novels; he's at his best when everything serves to illustrate a single idea. Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies is still one of my all-time faves. Haven't tried 3BP. Haven't even heard of Quantum Thief, but that sounds fun; I might look it out. One classic I keep meaning to reread is Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker. Never surpassed in scope, and you've got to hand it to someone who predicted teledildonics in 1937.
- thesz 8y ago
  He is not too dark. He just don't know better. ;) This is one of my criticisms of the author who write about, basically, deep planning: he himself didn't have horizon of planning far enough to envision future where horrors he plan to write about have been foreseen and humanity overcome them at their inception and these horrors are removed as class of errors. Imagine PSP/TSP at the level of humanity progress/interaction with other civilizations. Strugatskie brothers came there very closely - they have a civilization which plans progress around possible bad things that can happen [1] (including not having space travel so that tagorians won't fight, I guess). But they also was wrong - they saw this as impeding progress while in effect PSP/TSP-like practices make progress more streamlined and faster. But at least they tried. Watts didn't. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagorians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagorians
  - red75prime 8y ago
    You foresee the horrors, what do you plan to do about them? Nuclear weapons made the road to the world government extremely dangerous, and without the world government enforcement of bans on certain dangerous technologies is practically impossible.
    - thesz 8y ago
      I don't know. You jumped on me out of the blue with this. I have about a week to answer before comments will be closed here and, frankly, I do not have enough free time to think my answer through. So here I am: I don't know. On contrary, Watts, who spend several years thinking his fiction through, should have better answers than what he presented to us.
      - red75prime 8y ago
        The Strugatsky brothers didn't offer a solution too. They mostly hand-waved the question. It goes like this, if I am not mistaken: when humanity situation became dire, humans suddenly changed their minds and became one single family.
        8y ago
- andrewflnr 8y ago
  I second The Quantum Thief. I would also put Revelation Space and, really, any Culture novel above it in terms of sheer novelty level. I've also heard good things about The Fifth Season in that respect. Not that I don't like Blindsight, I just tend to think of it more as a One Big Idea book.
  - mrec 8y ago
    I read Revelation Space many years ago and it made no impression whatsoever; can't remember a single thing about it. I do like the (early) Culture novels, although their most striking novelties (like the the interesting temporal structure in Use of Weapons) aren't always SFnal ideas.
geoah 8y ago
Could not agree more. Takes some very interesting concepts and takes them on whole new levels. A definite must read is also the acknowledgments and references in both blindsight and the next part, echopraxia. Acknowledgements are amazing and references insanely interesting and detailed.

saeranv 8y ago

Probably my favorite hard sci-fi book. I haven't found the rest of the author's books (Peter Watts) as good, but I'm hoping his upcoming books change that. The sequel to Blindsight especially is a frustratingly opaque book, with a stilted pace in contrast with Blindsight (although several fascinating concepts are in there, if you take the time to read all the errata on the web in order to properly understand it). Also his blog is worth a read: https://www.rifters.com/crawl/ https://www.rifters.com/crawl/

thesz 8y ago
I lived through Chernobyl and I remember that radiation levels precluded robots from operating with radiowave remote controls. What Soviet engineers did is to operate robots with high voltage high current... electrical currents through wires. Everything was pumped up, from camera output to controls. My friend also prototyped well logging equipment with PIC16xxx microcontrollers which also can be operated with (relatively) high voltage (I remember 12V) and associated high currents. Well logging and Chernobyl disaster have one thing in common - high level of radiation. I was reading Blindsight after I read Echopraxia and was already suspicious about author (heck, vampires in E. have contradictory abilities - small musculature and high power, for one example). But when I read about "aperture leackage" I bursted out laughing and threw (PDF copy of) the book to the farthest corner of my room. Engineers from end of 21st century completely forget about experience from the end of 20th century. Nevermind relative cost of high-voltage high-current wires versus optical links. I divide fiction authors as being smart and being smartass (pretending to be smart with various things that look smart and hoping that he will cover things up somehow). Watts is a smartass by my classification as he thinks he can throw so many "ideas" there that reader will be overwhelmed and won't be able to find about true nature of his work. So I will not hold my breath that Watts will improve. Yet I found some concepts from Echopraxia interesting. For example, depth of planning - how intelligence services are planning, how higher intellects would plan. Echopraxia also made me thinking how and where Watts was (in fiction) or will be (in prediction) wrong and why. It raised my interest to long forgotten Noon series by Strugatskie brothers which serve as counterexample to what Watts have in mind. To conclude, Watt's work is conceptually very good science fiction that is very badly executed. This is so because it provokes thinking and argumentation (the sign of good literature) but is also so wrong in details (the sign of bad literature). Okay, I have to stop. Otherwise you will read a complete theory of everything by Serguey Zefirov soon. ;)

pmontra 8y ago

One of the greatest sci fi books ever. I read it again on the long flights back home from vacation this summer. It's been a few years since the last re-read and I think I understood something new. I also suggest its almost sequel, Echopraxia.

geoah 8y ago
Hehe love the “almost sequence” part of your comment. I always call it a sequel but your way is spot on. :))

codeulike 8y ago

A great book, one of the best sci-fi books of the 21st century perhaps. And its worth noting that its all online at that page because he released it as Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 I've set my latest novel free under the usual Creative Commons license ... I do this only partly to add data to the ongoing get-rich-by-giving-your-stuff-away experiment. The other reason is that a lot of people seem to be having trouble actually finding the book in brick-and-mortar stores. All the buzz in the world is worth jack-shit if the product isn't readily available. So check it out and go wild. And when your eyes start to fall out from phosphor burn, consider buying an old-fashioned paper version. There should be enough to go around before long: I'm told Blindsight's going into second printing. https://boingboing.net/2006/12/11/peter-watts-blindsig.html https://boingboing.net/2006/12/11/peter-watts-blindsig.html

nabla9 8y ago

Amazing 'teaser trailer' for Blindsight: https://rifters.com/real/progress.htm https://rifters.com/real/progress.htm

sxp 8y ago
The PDF copy of the presentation is better: https://rifters.com/real/shorts/VampireDomestication.pdf https://rifters.com/real/shorts/VampireDomestication.pdf

shoo 8y ago

Watts' back catalogue: https://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm https://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm I also enjoyed his earlier trilogy: starfish, maelstrom and behemoth a lot of the short stories are also good. a recurring theme in some of Watt's writing is damage control for failing or broken civilisation -- for example there was an X prize competition last year for short stories starting from the assumption that a plane flight magically jumps 20 years into the future, Watts produced this: https://seat14c.com/future_ideas/37D https://seat14c.com/future_ideas/37D

qnsi 8y ago

So, can someone recommend something similar to this? Last time I read Three Body Problem but got dissapointed