The Sword and Laser discussion

I know we've talked about parts of the book, but I am interested in hearing how you thought of the book as a complete work.

I liked the book, but I found it a little uneven and it left me a bit disappointed. Not because of what the book did, but more because the book went in directions I wasn't as interested in.

From a technical perspective I think the author did a good job of writing and structuring the book, parts of it completely drew me in. I can see why the book was nominated for a Hugo. Most of my criticism of the book is personal, which is no fault of the author.

Spoilerific details below.

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I didn't see any need for the captain to be a vampire. If as Siri discusses, the elite humans were already becoming much the way vampires are being described, why not just have them be adjusted humans? I understand that vampires are cool, but it just adds a level of remove to the book's theme of sentience being separate and possibly incompatible with transcendent beings.

I also got the feeling that the book was torn between wanting to be a genre Hard SF book and also be a modern novel. While the crew and the aliens were classic golden-era hard SF, what goes on out in space is [bigger spoiler (view spoiler)[largely irrelevant to what is going on back on earth at the end of the novel (hide spoiler)]]. I liked the scenes from Earth, but I feel they didn't move the alien plot along, other than providing an analogy.

If the ending was supposed to be a big reveal, it didn't work for me. [Same bigger spoiler (view spoiler)[ Either we are supposed to care about what happened with the aliens, in which case the ending seems tacked on and artificial; or we are supposed to see the alien interaction as a reflection of what was going on back on Earth. In the latter case, why have Siri on the ship at all? (hide spoiler)]] All the ending does is confuse the focus of the rest of the book for me.

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I don't want to give the impression that I didn't like the book. I really liked parts of it, but I was left feeling unfulfilled by the way the parts came together.

I had read/heard it was a "hard science fiction" story, so went in with certain expectations.

Unfortunately, I never recovered from the vampire, and throughout the narrative, the surface-scratched science continually jarred me from the story. There was very little science that was convincing to me.

I didn't think the ending was any good at all; I agree with you that it seemed simply tacked on when the author thought he had had written enough pages.

The confused narrator schtick was fine, but the nonlinear storyline was not as well executed as it could have been.

I was mostly disappointed in the book--I don't know if I can say I disliked it. If I had had different expectations, I might have enjoyed it.

This book seems to be the sci-fi version of the movie "No Country for Old Men." Everything just kind of collapses, nothing is what it seems, and the hero is less than that. I love that things were well researched, but the presentation seemed more to prove how smart the author was (and he enjoys telling you so much, and how idiotic others are, in the appendices.) So much for playing to the audience.

Yes.

I actually really liked it. I'm not usually a big SciFi fan, but I got trough this pretty well. And I loved the whole final discussion about sentience, why it evolved, if it should be considered an evolutionary dead... lots of stuff to think about.

Also, the part where (view spoiler)[ they torture the aliens to figure out how they communicate (hide spoiler)] just made me cringe and raised a lot of moral issues.

Pretty good "food for thought" book.

I read this couple months ago and have been thinking about it since, while not as satisfying a read as many i've enjoyed, the ideas in this really stuck with me. The fatal autism weakness for vampires was pretty cool and original, the human characters range of weaknesses was interesting but ultimately kind of tiring, and it was an interesting alien species. For me these spiky, thought provoking hard to digest stories are the ones that really stick with me.
As to the inclusion of vampires, i thought it was fun to see them in a scifi setting. It was a cool way to explain hibernation technology.

It had good parts and not-so-good parts for me. Like some other readers I struggled through the first quarter and was afraid it would stay like this throughout the book.

Fortunately it got better. I'm not really one for the whole astronomy stuff, so I had trouble really imagining how the whole Rorschach, Big Ben, Theseus stuff worked, was supposed to look like and interacted with each other. This is a general problem that I have. I read the words and get a general feeling about what is going on and what it means, but more on a vague abstract level.

All in all I liked it. I liked the atmosphere of the book, which was really bleak and somehow claustrophobic, as well as how the book raised some of the issues about sentience and communication.

I wasn't sure how well it all fit together. It seemed like a lot of ideas as well as plotlines thrown in together and I wonder if it would have been better to leave something out or actually make the book longer to explore it all in a bit more detail.

So, yeah, I liked it and I really think I will remember more of it than with other books I read, because it is kind of haunting. I didn't exactly *love* it, but that's okay. I'm fine with just liking it.

I really enjoyed the book—the suspense was very satisfying and kept me reading at a good clip. I thought the larger theme about the role of consciousness was well-structured and thought provoking. The presence of vampires didn't bother me too much. I guess I don't really care if the book is hard SF.

The one thing that kind of irritated me is the simplistic view of evolution. In talking about whether consciousness is adaptive or not, the book strays too close to the misunderstanding that evolution is a ladder, with more and less evolved creatures. This is a common misunderstanding. A simple unicellular creature living on Earth today is just as evolved, even if it is far less complex than a cheetah, a human, or a vampire.

Evolution is not the survival of the fittest; it is the survival of the fit. Consciousness is an adaptation that helps make our species fit to survive—it does not matter if we are the fittest. There are as many ways for a species to be fit as there are species.

I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was hard enough science fiction that I was enthralled by the speculation and the discussion of science. It was of particular interest to me, since I have also been studying Don Delillo's White Noise, another book which begs the question, "What is real?" So the theme of sentience and consciousness really hit the mark for me. And I'm not so into hard science fiction that the vampire bit bothered me.

I enjoyed the ending as well. It was all very speculative, which is probably what I love the best about science fiction: crazy, fascinating extrapolation.

I found Blindsight to be a bit of a mixed read. Some things I really liked, some I didn't.

I loved how he personified the satellite.

I also enjoyed the flashbacks of Siri and his girlfriend and the exploration of his challenges interacting with people. What I didn't go for were the hard sci-fi portions of the book.

I also had a hard time visualizing some of the scenes that he was painting. The descriptions were too abstract for my liking.

For a hard sci-fi book it was good, but not great.

I enjoyed it. Read it in a week - a record for me, so it really pulled me along. It was full of witty descriptions such as "The Devil's Baklava."

On the other hand, I couldn't follow some plot elements. The story-telling was oblique in areas. It is no crime for an author to be clear. (view spoiler)[I'm still not exactly sure what object lesson Siri learned from the vampire's attack. (hide spoiler)] Why not come out and say it in plain English?

I enjoyed the horror elements, alien concepts, and hybrid humans. Those are the things that kept me reading.

I enjoyed on some levels but not overall I think. It certainly raised many interesting ideas about what it is to be human and sentient but was unsatisfying as a story.

I enjoyed very much as a thought exercise, even more so after fully reading his comments at the end of the book. I haven't delved fully into his footnotes (almost 150 of the darn things) but there's a whole bunch of stuff out there. I really don't get those folks who insist that "it's not based on any science at all" and wonder what they read, because I read a very heavily indexed work that talked a really damn good talk about several sciences.

The end leaves me feeling off. I have to wonder if perhaps he might be right, I can see potential for his statement, but my own little pointy-haired boss is fully certain of its necessity.

Though I agree with the criticism of the writing quality, I found a couple things so interesting as to make the book an overall success.

First, the thought experiment about the fitness of sentience. I hadn't much explored the idea that intelligence doesn't require sentience, and that sentience does take up a lot of energy. Perhaps it is really anomalous and homo sapiens are just a lucky outlier.

Second, I like that the aliens really felt alien. It is rare that you get something that isn't just humans dressed up in alien suits. We even had different metabolism, reproduction and evolutionary mechanisms. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson also had this going for it (though I would rate Spin a better book overall).

The vampire only bothered me a bit, and the scientific/biological justification for it in the notes was interesting enough in its own right. By the way, if you haven't read the"Notes and References" section, or if the ebook doesn't have them, I would highly recommend them, you can get them on the rifters site html release of the book. The notes and references really do reinforce the "hard" sci-fi qualities of the book.

I have to say that it took me a while to get in to this one. The disjointed narrative was a little annoying at times. The lack of emotional investment by the narrator was not that troubling to me.

I like the idea of toying around with metaphor of the chinese room and how that plays out on multiple levels through out the novel. I suppose that with all of that in mind the ending should not have surprised me, but it did a little-felt a little too neat and slightly disappointing.

Perhaps a steady diet of Abercrombie lately has left me without out the taste for a neat, tidy ending?

I probably would not have read this if not for the S&L, but I enjoyed a walk about side my normal boundaries. Thanks to you all.

This was a book with a good setup but the author didn't follow through. I kind of got the impression that it started life as a short story or a novella and certain things were added to fill out pages (Chelsea in particular). I enjoyed his concept of the vampire and the various modified humans managed to keep my interest until the end. There are far too many passages that could use further explanation, and as others have mentioned, the ending feels tacked on.

Personally, I cannot see why this story would have been nominated for a Hugo. It does not hold up to other nominees that I have read. Just having an interesting set of characters is not enough to ignore the problems with the narration.

All in all, I am not moved to seek out his other works.

Here's my 2 cents worth. I have to agree with several of the posters here. The author had a great idea in the intelligence 'v' sentience argument but failed in the execution.

The novel seemed to contain a number of disjointed ideas taken from scientific articles that were just put there to add credibility. I have to agree with the poster who said the author seemed to be writing about science without really understanding. The appendix where the author justifies his science backs up this conclusion. To me, a science fiction novel that requires a lot of explanation just means that the author was unable to tell the story adequately.

As for the whole vampire issue. I would have been much happier if he had used some kind of genetically modified superior human with nasty hunting side effects. As it is, it's just nonsense.

Good ideas but an epic fail in the execution.

I found it to be a mixed bag, but still worth reading for its exploration of 'what is consciousness, and what is its value?' theme, and the interesting psychological abnormalities of the narrator and crew.

Agree with others that the ending and some other aspects felt rushed. The vampire thing I'm torn on - I actually kind of liked the role that character played in the group dynamic, but I think it would have served Watts better if that 'subspecies' were called something else, and had the *nickname* of vampires.

My favorite part was probably early-on when Rorschach was 'speaking' to them, and the crew was trying to puzzle it out - that was just really engrossing, eerie and fun.

Despite its various flaws, it did keep me interested in plowing through, and gave me a little bit of stuff to chew on thought-wise, so three out of five lasers.

Andrew wrote: "Good ideas but an epic fail in the execution. "

That sentence pretty much sums up how I felt about it.

I quit about 100 pages in. Sorry :(

I thought the story was very good and was invested in it. The problem I had was the ending. I enjoyed the mix of hard sci-fi, intellectual analysis and spooky horror. . . . right up until the end. The ending was completely unsatisfying. I felt like the Grandson in The Princess Bride when he says "Who kills Humperdink?" Seriously, Grampa, why did you tell me this story? Where's the actual ending? You had me and lost me (view spoiler)[right around the time the vampire went nuts (hide spoiler)]. I prefer actual resolution in my stories and I felt I got little, if any, from this one.

Dylan Northrup wrote: "I thought the story was very good and was invested in it. The problem I had was the ending. I enjoyed the mix of hard sci-fi, intellectual analysis and spooky horror. . . . right up until the end..."
Right on....felt like a total "OMG, I have to end this now moment"

I don't agree with EPIC fail...but not as well executed as it could have been definitely.

I really liked this book. The horrific atmosphere is still with me now. The ideas behind it really made me think. In addition, I was intrigued by the characters. Like Veronica (see latest podcast), I would like to see a novel based on the gang (a prequel maybe). I maybe totally insane, (sorry if someone's already said this) but I keep thinking that certain elements of the science in this book remind me of John Ringo's There Will Be Dragons series

I'm also in the mixed camp. I liked many of the ideas brought up by the book, but wasn't very entertained by the story.

I especially like the ideas that deal with "brain hacking" and how that might affect a person and those around them. In particular, The Gang seems to be taking the ability to multitask to the extreme. The other various crew members to me were a study in other brain alterations.

I'm forced to admit something I rarely do but I'm quitting the book. I'm about 50% through but i stopped paying attention about 30% in and i just can't get interested in this story

I thought it was a great companion for The Silence monsters in this seasons Doctor Who. And both a commentary on how human sentience is evolving in relation to our technology.

Eventually we'll exist in our own little digital world, nothing but what we see right in front of us will have any meaning. And when we turn away, it will be gone without memory. Until someone flips the switch and turns the whole thing off at once.

I thought it was fantastic. I don't object at all to the vampire, though I did find it a bit perplexing as a species choice. It did work well enough as a primordial human fear come back to life from the distant past, so ... okay.

This book catered to a lot of things that appeal to me - vampires, anthropology, science fiction, and good character development. In that sense, it may as well have been written for me. I also appreciate that it was a pretty quick read, as both my to-read and currently-reading piles are getting pretty massive.

I think I mostly liked it. I'd want to give it a 3.5 / 5 (but if I can't give half ratings I would go for a 3). I think there was kind of a conflict between the character parts of the story and the plot/alien parts of the story. Like I felt some of the characters had interesting potential, but they weren't really explored too deeply. I almost feel like the book should have been longer to fit some more of that in there, but maybe that would have just dragged things out.

I definitely liked the science-y side of it.

It wasn't perfect, but at least it was pretty quick.

I really didn't like this book. 1/5. It was a silly story told badly using sci-lingo over which the author clearly had no mastery. The vampire bit was the least problem with this book. I'll steer clear of Peter Watts in future and give Hugo nominated works a more thorough vetting before diving in.

I'm in the "I really enjoyed it except for the ending" camp. And the more I think about it, the less I like the ending. I started with a 5 on goodreads and then about a week after I finished I bumped it to a 4. And then down to a 3 where I think it's going to settle.

It just left me with kinda a sour taste in my mouth. I loved the exploration of the self and all the psychological and philosophical content. I had no problems with the vampire. But the narrative just sorta...stopped and I'm left unsatisfied.

I liked it a lot. He went a lot of interesting places with the "what do we do once we can hook ourselves up to Matrix-type interfaces". The explorations of the downsides of ubiquitous telepresence, real virtual reality, etc were interesting as well.

I thought he did a really good job of making the aliens feel *alien* as well - something you absolutely can't relate to in any useful way (and vice versa). Much better than the typical Klingon/Vulcan ripoffs, or the mysterious benefactors who turn out to be evil.

Sarasti seemed... unnecessary. Like the author stuck in a vampire just because they're popular at the moment. I didn't understand his (the character's, that is) motivations at all, although I guess you're not supposed to? But seriously, was he trying to help humanity? Screw them over? Help Rorschach? Why? I get that his whole thing was that he was always "10 moves ahead", but come on, give me *something*!

It took a while for me to get into the book (was slow for me until the Stretch and Clench) and then I read the rest fairly quickly. There seemed to be too much explanation and back story of Suri, a character that I didn't really like. It had a a few interesting questions about where humanity was headed but overall a meh.

I enjoyed this book a lot, however, my enjoyment was set up by a bit of coincidence.

1. A month or so ago, I listened to Tom and Leo's Triangulation Podcast where they interviewed Ray Kurzweil. I enjoyed the podcast so much, I went to Audible and proceeded to listen to Ray's book "The Singularity is Near". To me, it seemed that Blindsight extrapolated on a number of Kurzweil's key concepts concerning the man/machine evolution, as well as the evolution of AI. Also, Kurzweil covered the thought experiment of a “Chinese Room” extensively.
2. Following Singularity, I picked up "The Invisible Gorilla" by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simmins. This book talks quite a bit about the brain, memory and perception and thus built up a good, if layman's, appreciation of Suri's dilemmas about his own perception of events.
3. I happened to listen to a podcast from RadioLab, "Talking to Machines" which takes a look at the current state of AI (artificial intelligence) and spends some time on the Turing test and arguing the nature of consciousness.

With these three experiences in my recent memory I coincidentally decided to begin listening to Blindsight, and found quickly that the concepts that I had recently been learning about and considering were central to the plot and characters of the novel. I was interested in the Blindsight concepts of 'Heaven' and 'the realists' as these ideas seem to be very likely outcomes of societal impact of the Singularity discussed on Kurzweil's book.

On a side note, is there some kind of science fiction meme that states that spaceship food is automatically tasteless gruel? If we are advanced enough to make a spaceship, why wouldn't we just decide ahead of time how we wanted the tasteless gruel to taste and then let some sensory program cause us to experience eating steak and potatoes? At the very least, they should have been able to bioengineer the flavour of strawberrys... Just saying....

I think the best way I can sum this book up was I started it waaaay back when the book was announced, and only just finished it. This was one that I really had to force myself to get back to, after I very nearly abandoned it.

In most of the reviews and blurbs I've read, it's really been sold as a book with a ton of really great, crazy ideas. On that point, I'd definitely agree. Did it make for an enjoyable read? Not at all. I think with so many interesting concepts, the author could have really gone deep into a handful instead of trying to explain some futuro-scientific concept every other chapter.

On the issues that most people had (the vampires and the ending), I wasn't quite so bothered. I like a little ambiguity in my stories, and I think it's fitting for Siri, the Chinese Room. The vampire bits were amusing, but non-essential.

OK, off to read some George RR Martin...