This was a hard book to review. There's a significant amount of buzz about this book (Charlie Stross, Elizabeth Bear, Jeremy Lassen, Starlog, Interzone, ∞), and I would say, by and large, it's mostly deserved. Mostly.
Blindsight is the story of a small four man crew (with a few back up popsicles in cryosleep) who go out to meet up with an alien ship that's entering our solar system. It's a scientific exploration of philosophy dressed up as a First Contact story.
The term I heard the most in reviews is "tour de force". And it was. Blindsight was a tour de force of everything Peter Watts. Or, at least, it certainly felt like it (especially in reading the end notes where the personality and "voice" of the author carried across from the fiction). It's a flashy book with slick prose and ideas flying around like fists in a bar brawl (I hate it when reviewers get figurative). And it was a problematic read.
Blindsight is the story of a small four man crew (with a few back up popsicles in cryosleep) who go out to meet up with an alien ship that's entering our solar system. It's a scientific exploration of philosophy dressed up as a First Contact story.
The term I heard the most in reviews is "tour de force". And it was. Blindsight was a tour de force of everything Peter Watts. Or, at least, it certainly felt like it (especially in reading the end notes where the personality and "voice" of the author carried across from the fiction). It's a flashy book with slick prose and ideas flying around like fists in a bar brawl (I hate it when reviewers get figurative). And it was a problematic read.
