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That's exactly what I found, but I think I'm more forgiving then your are. I agree, Watts is a smartass for certain* concepts, however I thought it worked in Bl

That's exactly what I found, but I think I'm more forgiving then your are. I agree, Watts is a smartass for certain* concepts, however I thought it worked in Blindsight because the story and concept is so original, and though-provoking that I didn't mind. It may because I didn't catch the technical contradictions like you did :) Because of it's technical density, and thought-provoking concepts, I think it's a book that rewards rereading (my favorite types of books). I've read Blindsight twice so far, and the second time I was able to appreciate, and understand better the massive amounts of technical detail he was pumping into the book. I may need a second reread of Echopraxia to get to a similar appreciation. In my first read (only a couple of months ago) I felt as if Watt's desire to be seen as smart starts coming off as a smartass. He buries every action in about 10 levels of subterfuge, and ambiguity, such that by the time I got to the end of the book, I knew I was missing about 50% of what was actually happening. What saved me was a Reddit thread Watts had done where he explained to his confused fans all the intricacies of the plot that he had hidden. Once I read through his explanation, I appreciated the book a lot more, and have to say if it was rewritten to be more understandable it would be at an equal or higher level of originality then Blindsight. What do you mean the Noon series is a counterexample to what Watts had in mind? * I say "certain" because he has a PhD in marine biology, so I assume his biological concepts are very rigorous.

thesz 8y ago
>What do you mean the Noon series is a counterexample to what Watts had in mind? Basically, Strugatskie's tried to anticipate what would happen if most of horrors that are imaginable by 20th century SciFi authors are taken care of and would not happen at all. Watts tries to extend horrors we are used to to new lengths. If you look close enough, you'll see that these transhuman intellects are really parasites (trying to be symbiotes) that live on the body of humanity. They can't live outside, at least, it is not shown how they can. The Noon series talk about individual people at their peak as authors were able to imagine at the sixties-seventies. They can be thrown into radioactive wasteland and live and thrive there: Обитаемый Остров - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_Power. They posses extreme fighting skills: the same Prisoners of Power - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Sikorski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Sikorski was able to avoid being injured when ambushed with twenty soldiers roughly of mid-20th century average power, armed with machine guns and managed to destroy them all; the main hero of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_to_Be_a_God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_to_Be_a_God managed to fight many medieval-level fighters and not kill anyone - basically, all people in the Noon are equipped with "the switch" that father of Siri has and they still can control it consciously. In Blindsight Watts presented a device that is called "mentoscope" in Noon - see Siri memories about his mother and father fight. In Echopraxia it is revealed that these devices are used to bring whatever is pleasurable to populace: "they know how to make dream come true" or something like that about Echopraxia's pilot's marriage. This is about the same level of usage as in Prisoners of Power when Maxim's memories was recorded in Saraksh. In Noon's universe, however, the mentoscope is used to speed up learning and to bring the skills that are hard to obtain otherwise (hand combat system "субакс"/"subax" - why punch others to face when you can record what to do?). It is also used to suppress traumatic memories, bringing society member to his full potential again. In Noon, everyone lives the fullest possible life, even people that are clearly brought to life by possibly hostile supercivilization. They help each other even when they do not agree. In Firefall, the chasm is so big I can't even feel a thing about anyone there (I still think about them, though). Why in hell people still use terror tactics in end of 21st century (Siri is the victim, Echopraxia's pilot's wife is the victim) instead of helping hand tactics?
- tsukikage 8y ago
  The noon universe is a thoroughly depressing set of books. Most of the plot invariably occurs not in the ideal Noon society, but in one or another form of recent/current dystopia: the totalitarian state of Inhabited Island's Saraksh, the feudalist gulag of EN-7031 in Escape Attempt, Arkanar's descent into a fascist police state in Hard to be God... Over and over, the ideal humans from future-earth hold up a twisted mirror to our own life as they try to engage and help but discover there are no good answers - at best, they don't make things any worse; but often they fail in even that much. Monday begins on Saturday is a much more upbeat story that's actually about people who are better than who we are right now, in an environment that lets them thrive; and you do need both those components for a utopia - contrast with A Thousand Years 'till the End of the World, which has people of similar character (or better; they overcome challenges of a difficulty that Monday begins on Saturday never presents its cast with in the first place) but in an antagonistic environment, and is again super depressing. While Watts expands horrors we are used to to new lengths, the Strugatsky brothers are out to show that even ideally moral superhumans can't save us from ourselves.
  - thesz 8y ago
    Exactly. But Noon series also show what life of these demigods can be. You are at the highest of your performance and climbing and you face problems that challenge you to climb higher from unexpected sides.

thesz 8y ago

>What do you mean the Noon series is a counterexample to what Watts had in mind? Basically, Strugatskie's tried to anticipate what would happen if most of horrors that are imaginable by 20th century SciFi authors are taken care of and would not happen at all. Watts tries to extend horrors we are used to to new lengths. If you look close enough, you'll see that these transhuman intellects are really parasites (trying to be symbiotes) that live on the body of humanity. They can't live outside, at least, it is not shown how they can. The Noon series talk about individual people at their peak as authors were able to imagine at the sixties-seventies. They can be thrown into radioactive wasteland and live and thrive there: Обитаемый Остров - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_Power. They posses extreme fighting skills: the same Prisoners of Power - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Sikorski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Sikorski was able to avoid being injured when ambushed with twenty soldiers roughly of mid-20th century average power, armed with machine guns and managed to destroy them all; the main hero of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_to_Be_a_God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_to_Be_a_God managed to fight many medieval-level fighters and not kill anyone - basically, all people in the Noon are equipped with "the switch" that father of Siri has and they still can control it consciously. In Blindsight Watts presented a device that is called "mentoscope" in Noon - see Siri memories about his mother and father fight. In Echopraxia it is revealed that these devices are used to bring whatever is pleasurable to populace: "they know how to make dream come true" or something like that about Echopraxia's pilot's marriage. This is about the same level of usage as in Prisoners of Power when Maxim's memories was recorded in Saraksh. In Noon's universe, however, the mentoscope is used to speed up learning and to bring the skills that are hard to obtain otherwise (hand combat system "субакс"/"subax" - why punch others to face when you can record what to do?). It is also used to suppress traumatic memories, bringing society member to his full potential again. In Noon, everyone lives the fullest possible life, even people that are clearly brought to life by possibly hostile supercivilization. They help each other even when they do not agree. In Firefall, the chasm is so big I can't even feel a thing about anyone there (I still think about them, though). Why in hell people still use terror tactics in end of 21st century (Siri is the victim, Echopraxia's pilot's wife is the victim) instead of helping hand tactics?

tsukikage 8y ago
The noon universe is a thoroughly depressing set of books. Most of the plot invariably occurs not in the ideal Noon society, but in one or another form of recent/current dystopia: the totalitarian state of Inhabited Island's Saraksh, the feudalist gulag of EN-7031 in Escape Attempt, Arkanar's descent into a fascist police state in Hard to be God... Over and over, the ideal humans from future-earth hold up a twisted mirror to our own life as they try to engage and help but discover there are no good answers - at best, they don't make things any worse; but often they fail in even that much. Monday begins on Saturday is a much more upbeat story that's actually about people who are better than who we are right now, in an environment that lets them thrive; and you do need both those components for a utopia - contrast with A Thousand Years 'till the End of the World, which has people of similar character (or better; they overcome challenges of a difficulty that Monday begins on Saturday never presents its cast with in the first place) but in an antagonistic environment, and is again super depressing. While Watts expands horrors we are used to to new lengths, the Strugatsky brothers are out to show that even ideally moral superhumans can't save us from ourselves.
- thesz 8y ago
  Exactly. But Noon series also show what life of these demigods can be. You are at the highest of your performance and climbing and you face problems that challenge you to climb higher from unexpected sides.