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My personal favorite is Blindsight [0][1]. I read it multiple times (3 or 4, I think) over the years. If you like Blindsight, you’ll probably want to continue

by drclau 5y ago

My personal favorite is Blindsight [0][1]. I read it multiple times (3 or 4, I think) over the years. If you like Blindsight, you’ll probably want to continue with the sidequel, Echopraxia. You can also find them bundled together under the name Firefall. And I think out of his main works, Blindsight is probably the most accessible. It also led me to Thomas Metzinger’s “The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self” [2], which Watts used as a source material in his research and had good things to say about. The Rifters series is great, too, but there’s a sort of darkness or heaviness to it that may not work for everyone. And bonus content, a fan made short movie based on Blindsight, here: [3]. I hope this helps. :) Links: [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel) [1]: https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm [2]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5895503 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5895503 [3]: https://vimeo.com/myshli/blindsight https://vimeo.com/myshli/blindsight

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
Blindsight really fucked with my head, and not in a good way. Books can do that. Like, read Tom Robbins and you'll fall in love with the next person you see. Read Peter Watts and you'll spend the next four years looking at the person next to you like they're an alien who's plotting to lay eggs in you without themselves even knowing it.
- hallway_monitor 5y ago
  Can confirm, I think about Blindsight a lot (I think it's good), and when I was 21 I fell for a girl after we found out we were both reading Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Robbins)
finiteseries 5y ago
Ensure communities of people have spent years trying to find books similar to Blindsight/Firefall in general to scratch the itch (with 0 success), so, be careful in maybe not finishing them too quickly.
- drclau 5y ago
  It took me a moment there to understand exactly what you mean (not sure why, since your comment is clear). I think I was always part of this category of people without even realizing, until I read Peter Watts’ books, and in particular Blindsight. I read hard SF, and I enjoy the genre greatly. But most of it just lacks something that is hard to pinpoint. It’s both something about human psychology, and where the case, especially about the aliens. Not Blindsight, tho. Not at all. Btw, there’s another hard SF author that I have a huge appreciation for: Ken MacLeod. His style is different, but in my opinion he gets things right too. Some of his books I read multiple times too, and I really don’t do that often, having limited time for reading and being rather picky about what I read.
  - finiteseries 5y ago
    Ah, autocorrect! Meant to say “Entire communities of people…” Can absolutely see someone being part of that group before reading/realizing though, Watts/Blindsight is so different but almost “natural”. I used to think it was its unrelenting emphasis on competition, but there’s absolutely more to it as you say in its treatment of psychology, consciousness, alien/different life I’ve never read Ken Macleod but I’m happy to look into him now, can’t remember ever being disappointed in recommendations given off the back of Blindsight!
joshmarlow 5y ago
Can't recommend Watts enough - Blindsight is one of my top 3 favorite novels. He periodically drops hints about his progress on the sequel to Echopraxia. For quick recommendations, I'd single out two of his short stories (which are two of my favorite stories in general): The 21 Second God - https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=5968 https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=5968 Malak - https://rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_Malak.pdf https://rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_Malak.pdf Edit: I always forget HN doesn't use markdown.
saeranv 5y ago
My experience with Echopraxia is that it's significantly more confusing and complex then Blindsight. There are chunks of Blindsight that go over my head, but in general you can get the gist of it from context (and was rewarded on rereads as things progressively became clearer). Echopraxia somehow was not able to navigate the tension between ambiguity and outright confusion. I believe Peter Watts has acknowledged this as a problem in Echopraxia and spent a Reddit AMA explaining to readers what the plot was. I do need to reread Echopraxia though, and perhaps my opinion will change after that. Blindsight was brilliant enough that it deserves the extra effort to appreciate.
- nojokes 5y ago
  It is not a replacement, but Ramez Naam Nexus series is very good.
kwhitefoot 5y ago
> If you like Blindsight, Not sure that I like Blindsight even though I think it a great book. The same goes for some of his other books; deeply unsettling

by drclau 5y ago

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago

Blindsight really fucked with my head, and not in a good way. Books can do that. Like, read Tom Robbins and you'll fall in love with the next person you see. Read Peter Watts and you'll spend the next four years looking at the person next to you like they're an alien who's plotting to lay eggs in you without themselves even knowing it.

hallway_monitor 5y ago
Can confirm, I think about Blindsight a lot (I think it's good), and when I was 21 I fell for a girl after we found out we were both reading Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Robbins)

finiteseries 5y ago

Ensure communities of people have spent years trying to find books similar to Blindsight/Firefall in general to scratch the itch (with 0 success), so, be careful in maybe not finishing them too quickly.

drclau 5y ago
It took me a moment there to understand exactly what you mean (not sure why, since your comment is clear). I think I was always part of this category of people without even realizing, until I read Peter Watts’ books, and in particular Blindsight. I read hard SF, and I enjoy the genre greatly. But most of it just lacks something that is hard to pinpoint. It’s both something about human psychology, and where the case, especially about the aliens. Not Blindsight, tho. Not at all. Btw, there’s another hard SF author that I have a huge appreciation for: Ken MacLeod. His style is different, but in my opinion he gets things right too. Some of his books I read multiple times too, and I really don’t do that often, having limited time for reading and being rather picky about what I read.
- finiteseries 5y ago
  Ah, autocorrect! Meant to say “Entire communities of people…” Can absolutely see someone being part of that group before reading/realizing though, Watts/Blindsight is so different but almost “natural”. I used to think it was its unrelenting emphasis on competition, but there’s absolutely more to it as you say in its treatment of psychology, consciousness, alien/different life I’ve never read Ken Macleod but I’m happy to look into him now, can’t remember ever being disappointed in recommendations given off the back of Blindsight!

joshmarlow 5y ago

Can't recommend Watts enough - Blindsight is one of my top 3 favorite novels. He periodically drops hints about his progress on the sequel to Echopraxia. For quick recommendations, I'd single out two of his short stories (which are two of my favorite stories in general): The 21 Second God - https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=5968 https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=5968 Malak - https://rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_Malak.pdf https://rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_Malak.pdf Edit: I always forget HN doesn't use markdown.

saeranv 5y ago

My experience with Echopraxia is that it's significantly more confusing and complex then Blindsight. There are chunks of Blindsight that go over my head, but in general you can get the gist of it from context (and was rewarded on rereads as things progressively became clearer). Echopraxia somehow was not able to navigate the tension between ambiguity and outright confusion. I believe Peter Watts has acknowledged this as a problem in Echopraxia and spent a Reddit AMA explaining to readers what the plot was. I do need to reread Echopraxia though, and perhaps my opinion will change after that. Blindsight was brilliant enough that it deserves the extra effort to appreciate.

nojokes 5y ago
It is not a replacement, but Ramez Naam Nexus series is very good.

kwhitefoot 5y ago

> If you like Blindsight, Not sure that I like Blindsight even though I think it a great book. The same goes for some of his other books; deeply unsettling