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Terry 's Reviews > Blindsight
Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
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Wow. This was a tough one. It was a very good hard sf book that I don't think I'll be coming back to anytime soon. As others have said: "abandon all hope ye who enter here." A well written, excruciating exploration of the human "problem" where it turns out that it really is a problem. How do you take a book whose central premise seems to be that the development of self-awareness in human evolution was a wrong turn that wasn't meant to happen at all? That it was in fact contrary to the entire development of intelligence throughout the rest of the universe that only occurred due to a fluke in the evolution of a competing species? Talk about being alone in an uncaring reality. Watts manages to take Lovecraft's primary hobby horse and make it work in a way that is truly frightening in its utter nihilism. This isn't a scary universe because Watts tells us so (as it would have been had Lovecraft wrote the tale), it's scary because he shows us so.
Our primary filter for information is Siri Keeton, a man with literally only half a brain. Due to a childhood trauma he was essentially lobotomized and given computer processors to make up for what was removed. Siri obviously lost a lot during the process, but "gained" the ability to be the ultimate "Chinese Room" for humanity...for all that was worth. His whole life he has been trying to understand even 'baseline' humans and his facility with doing so, with looking at the human enigma on the surface and from the outside, and parsing it correctly has led him to become a professional conduit between these baseline humans and the posthuman entities they have created and made to work for them. He is a uniquely appropriate narrator for this tale as his very mode of existence showcases Watts' entire argument in microcosm; and interestingly his entire development as a character is the reverse of the development of the story and even of the universe itself. Siri's story starts and ends as a very lonely one, but for very different reasons.
Another fascinating element of the tale is the fairly unique use of vampires as an off-shoot sub-species of humanity originally destroyed due to humanity's self-awareness and then brought back by high science to be our servants. These are probably the most frightening vampires I've yet come across in fiction, not only because of the pseudo-scientific "plausibility", but primarily because of what we eventually discover about them in the story's conclusion.
I will say very little about "Rorschach", the alien entity with whom humanity attempts to communicate in this tale of first contact, except to say that the Lovecraftian enigma of its seeming indifference to human existence is truly chilling in its implications. Far more than any dreaming Cthulhu, Rorschach is an entity whose strangeness is truly to be feared.
All in all this was a rewarding, though deeply uncomfortable, read.
Also posted on Shelf Inflicted
Our primary filter for information is Siri Keeton, a man with literally only half a brain. Due to a childhood trauma he was essentially lobotomized and given computer processors to make up for what was removed. Siri obviously lost a lot during the process, but "gained" the ability to be the ultimate "Chinese Room" for humanity...for all that was worth. His whole life he has been trying to understand even 'baseline' humans and his facility with doing so, with looking at the human enigma on the surface and from the outside, and parsing it correctly has led him to become a professional conduit between these baseline humans and the posthuman entities they have created and made to work for them. He is a uniquely appropriate narrator for this tale as his very mode of existence showcases Watts' entire argument in microcosm; and interestingly his entire development as a character is the reverse of the development of the story and even of the universe itself. Siri's story starts and ends as a very lonely one, but for very different reasons.
Another fascinating element of the tale is the fairly unique use of vampires as an off-shoot sub-species of humanity originally destroyed due to humanity's self-awareness and then brought back by high science to be our servants. These are probably the most frightening vampires I've yet come across in fiction, not only because of the pseudo-scientific "plausibility", but primarily because of what we eventually discover about them in the story's conclusion.
I will say very little about "Rorschach", the alien entity with whom humanity attempts to communicate in this tale of first contact, except to say that the Lovecraftian enigma of its seeming indifference to human existence is truly chilling in its implications. Far more than any dreaming Cthulhu, Rorschach is an entity whose strangeness is truly to be feared.
All in all this was a rewarding, though deeply uncomfortable, read.
Also posted on Shelf Inflicted
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Nov 22, 2011 05:06PM
Wonderful review, Dulac3. I have been meaning to read this for a while.
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Thanks very much! It's a great book, but certainly not a very upbeat one. I really like Watts, but I'll need awhile before I think I'll be ready to tackle another of his books...it sounds like they don't get any cheerier.
I feel the same way reading Cormac McCarthy. Love his books, but need a break between each one.
I hadn't made the Lovecraftian connection when I read it, but you're absolutely spot-on there.
Yeah I've never felt the "uncaring universe" vibe like I did in this book. It really took the element of loneliness and existential horror that would have entailed and dialed it up to eleven.
I stumbled across this book in a store today and made a note to check out what people were saying about it on Goodreads as something about it grabbed me. Your review was fantastic Terry, so it's now on my Christmas list.
Thanks Paddy, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Already have the audiobook and need to make time for it in the new year. Might avoid it during Christmas to avoid becoming a pessimistic grinch
An astute and well observe review. I felt wrung out at the conclusion and have waited a good 12 months to pick up another Peter Watts book. Love what he does but man is he hard on my humanity.
Thanks very much Joseph! Yes, he's an excellent writer, but I can only take him in small doses.
I only recently got around to starting this, (I can’t believe it’s been 4 years since my previous comment!) and just how you intimated in your review, it certainly doesn’t take any Prisoners or hold one’s hand. I actually admire such a ballsy attitude *when* a Writer can pull it off. Case in point: I find Iain M. Banks “Culture” series virtually impenetrable, whereas others love it, and while I acknowledge that it’s unfair of me to compare them to each other, I can’t help but think that maybe the difference here is that Watt’s take the time to explain and make sense of the world around him and its inner workings that feels logical, whereas Bank’s (at the very least, the two Culture novels I trudged through) never seemed to do so. Ergo: one has depth, the other mere surface detail. (Sorry Iain!)
This line from around fifty pages into the book actually made me laugh aloud because it’s so outrageously in your face:
“Their marriage decayed with the exponential determinism of a radioactive isotope...”
Brilliant. Not “brilliant” because it’s genius, but more so as it seemed to be the equivalent of a literary middle finger. Like I said, ballsy. It gave me a good indicator about Watt’s writing style and I think in a way, maybe this is the point where “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” comes into play - if you pass this gateway, I think you’ve pretty much understood that you’re either in or out.
Anyway, so far, so fascinating. I’m glad I passed the test as it were, and I’m now intrigued where it will take me and if my persistence will be rewarded...
Glad you were able to get to it Paddy! I have enjoyed several of Banks' Culture books (especially Inversions and Excession), but would agree that I have often been somewhat disappointed with them overall. I'm curious to see how you will find the book when you finish...sadly I was less impressed with the (somewhat) recent sequel.
All I know is that someone described it as far more “accessible”. Maybe it’s a case here of he’s damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t?On the off-chance you haven’t read them, I highly recommend the Time Manifold trilogy* by Stephen Baxter. Bloody fantastic.
*This is followed-up by a book of short stories called “Phase Space”.
I found Blindsight a bit implausible. In the real world just making crops more pest-resistant is incredibly controversial, but the premise of the book is that someone created a race of super-smart vampire monster men that terrify everyone and feed on humans? No-one would think that's a good idea. And this leads the book to end exactly the way you'd think, no twists or surprises.
Much like Terry has mentioned above, it’s a fascinating, if bleak look at the Universe - or more aptly, ourselves. I finished “Echopraxia” over the weekend, and although once I connected with Watt’s writing style, I did find the latter half confusing with the use of nicknames for people, places and constructs. That being said, I live with ptsd, and a few of the many cascading issues are brain fog and lack of focus - which in turn has largely robbed me of whipping thru books like I used to, so I freely admit that could be as much my lack of recall as it could be Watt’s “take no prisoners” approach. I started “Blindsight”, but read a chapter and felt like it may be a better idea to leave that alone for a while and move on to something else. (Anyone else here like to take the time to absorb and “digest” a book before continuing with a series/saga, or is it just me?) But it was your post Christoff that made me commit to the idea of coming back to it another time.
PS: Friend requests from fellow Sci-Fi nerds and Fantasy geeks always welcomed!
Hi Christoff, I certainly wouldn’t want to bring back a race of vampires from the dead, but mankind doesn’t always have the best track record for doing things that make sense when they think they can get something for themselves out of it. Hubris or something like that. I don’t think the fact that this turned out to be a bad idea was a twist, more the fact that all of humanity’s underlying assumptions about the universe, and their place in it, were fundamentally wrong.
Terry, love it or hate it, it seems this is a book that just won’t let go until it shakes a reaction out of you! Surely a sign that the Author knows their craft if nothing else!It’s all subjective of course, much like Art - but if it doesn’t provoke ANY reaction, is it still “Art”?
How very Zen.
Yours wonderingly,
Paddy
