From the Bookshelf of The Sword and Laser…

Blindsight (Firefall, #1)

Peter Watts

Start date: April 5, 2011

Finish date: May 2, 2011

Discussion: 2011 Reads

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2011 Reads

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What Members Thought

Apr 04, 2011 Veronica Belmont rated it liked it

Shelves: scifi, sword-and-laser

This book was an interesting read, especially the "hard" science aspects of it... though I'm still not buying the whole "vampires in space" idea. In fact... you could have taken vampires out of this book entirely (or replaced them with werewolves or witches) and I'm not sure that it would have changed the story at all... that's how peripheral they seemed to me.

And the ending felt totally tacked on, and I'm still not very clear on the "why's" of some of the character's motivations. ...more

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Apr 16, 2011 Tom rated it did not like it

Shelves: hard-copy

If you read a book because its thought provoking rather than entertaining, then you'll probably enjoy this. Me? Even when I read hard sci-fi (this is about as "hard" as sci-fi gets)- I'd like there to be at least one character that I can identify with... at some level. Not one to be found here.

Thought experiments seem to be the main endeavor in this story (ever hear of the Chinese Room experiment? Neither did I before reading this. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_... ), not plot or cha ...more

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Mar 16, 2011 Matthew rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook

This is perhaps one of the hardest reviews I have had to write for a book because of the myriad of ideas happening in this story. On one aspect, this book is a very difficult read. The opening character monologue doesn't initially identify the events happening and there are often times sudden jumps between character's perspectives and past events that I found myself a bit lost. Even once the story gets going, there are several jumps between characters during the main story line I found it diffic This is perhaps one of the hardest reviews I have had to write for a book because of the myriad of ideas happening in this story. On one aspect, this book is a very difficult read. The opening character monologue doesn't initially identify the events happening and there are often times sudden jumps between character's perspectives and past events that I found myself a bit lost. Even once the story gets going, there are several jumps between characters during the main story line I found it difficult at times to establish whose side story I was delving into.

Overall though this is a fantastic take on the hard sci-fi first contact story that takes the concept of the alien to an interesting level. This is not a "little green men" story, but instead the alien entity is something similar to what we saw in the Sphere. The true nature of this story hinges on the concepts and ideas surrounding the human mind and our consciousness. Our crew is a batch of modified humans, each with their own strengths and relative weaknesses and each of which takes a angular look at the impact of this alien species upon our own minds and also the impact of our minds upon the alien. There is a lot going on in this story and it is hard to fully articulate a story that tries to counter the concepts of conscious and sub-concious as it relates to alien life. It does do a wonderful job at it in the end and ultimately leaves a wonderful cliff hanger of an ending about the actual outcome. That is of course supposing that the actual outcome of this book is supposed to be the conclusion of our first contact encounter.

Overall it is a wonderful read for those looking to experience a book that focuses on questioning the concepts of what alien life might be and what it might try to conceptualize as the world around it relative to us. Peter Watts did an amazing job with the research for this book as evidenced by the 40+ pages explaining that research at the end to ground is psychological and technological assumptions. This was a 2007 Hugo Nominee for a reason.

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Apr 16, 2011 Nomad Scry rated it liked it

Shelves: audio

I'm not sure what to say about this one. I had a really hard time getting into the story for perhaps the first hour and half. Part of that was the odd narrative structure and part of it was the recording. The narration itself was fine, but the recording was too close, too bass-y, too ... soft? I could hear but not understand what was being said, unless I raised the volume considerably. Eventually I started listening at double speed and found that made my comprehension a lot easier.

As for the sto ...more

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