Free Download
Blindsight
Blindsight
Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn't want to meet?
Book Excerpt
ecrets.
After all, Theseus damn well was.
*
She'd taken us a good fifteen AUs towards our destination before something scared her off course. Then she'd skidded north like a startled cat and started climbing: a wild high three-gee burn off the ecliptic, thirteen hundred tonnes of momentum bucking against Newton's First. She'd emptied her Penn tanks, bled dry her substrate mass, squandered a hundred forty days' of fuel in hours. Then a long cold coast through the abyss, years of stingy accounting, the thrust of every antiproton weighed against the drag of sieving it from the void. Teleportation isn't magic: the Icarus stream couldn't send us the actual antimatter it made, only the quantum specs. Theseus had to filterfeed the raw material from space, one ion at a time. For long dark years she'd made do on pure inertia, hording every swallowed atom. Then a flip; ionizing lasers strafing the space ahead; a ramscoop thrown wide in a hard brake. The weight of a trillion trilli
Editor's choice
(view all)
Popular books in Creative Commons, Science Fiction, Post-1930
Readers reviews
4.1
LoginSign up
This is not a book for everyone.
It is science fiction on a very sophisticated level, with an interesting combination of classical science fiction elements of the days of Clarke, and the flow (or rathernot) of Gibson's cyber-punk.
This book is highly complex, non-linear, and does not treat its audience as children.
You're going to need to put in some effort to finish it because it is fairly long. You can't read bits and pieces on the bus and expect to follow along. yet the experience is worth it.
Without giving too much away I will say only that the ending is classic and though provoking.
Possibly the most underappreciated work of fiction on this site.
And those of you who've read it - nag your local bookstore to order some print copies.
It is science fiction on a very sophisticated level, with an interesting combination of classical science fiction elements of the days of Clarke, and the flow (or rathernot) of Gibson's cyber-punk.
This book is highly complex, non-linear, and does not treat its audience as children.
You're going to need to put in some effort to finish it because it is fairly long. You can't read bits and pieces on the bus and expect to follow along. yet the experience is worth it.
Without giving too much away I will say only that the ending is classic and though provoking.
Possibly the most underappreciated work of fiction on this site.
And those of you who've read it - nag your local bookstore to order some print copies.
- Upvote (0)
- Downvote (0)
This book is poorly written I didn't know what was going on half the time. I had to go back and try to figure who was who. We for some reason have Vampires, and a lady with two personalities.
Strange characters with no explanation for being strange. Don't waste your time.
Strange characters with no explanation for being strange. Don't waste your time.
10/15/2008
Rather interesting book, but the end is quite a bit disappointing.
No idea why the author had to drag (genetically re-engineered) vampires out of the science fiction writers dirt box - it's not as if they were a necessity for the story.
I.
No idea why the author had to drag (genetically re-engineered) vampires out of the science fiction writers dirt box - it's not as if they were a necessity for the story.
I.
09/21/2008
Ponderous and pretentious, and the story isn't worth the trouble.
09/15/2008
Blindsight is amazing. Who is Peter Watts? I've never heard of the guy, never heard of Blindsight and yet it's one of the best SF's i've read in years. Read it!!
12/27/2007
Excellent read. Peter Watts has meticulously researched cutting edge techniques across several disciplines, believably futurized and woven them into an amazingly readable hard science fiction novel. His ngaging characters hold true to their various core beliefs and individual natures. A mixture of amazement, amusement, horror and action. highly recommended.
08/05/2007
I must give full points here. This is state-of-the-art science fiction even the late Mr Lem couldn't have written better. In fact, this story can easily go as sequel to Lem's Fiasco and other contact stories from Lem like Eden or The Invincible, with the difference that Watts has the technology right, and this story is in the solar system. Not that Lem's technology was wrong, but Watts' is modern, and he explains where he got his from. Even more interesting are Watts' references at the end of the book which filled my to-read list a lot. Thanks to the author for releasing with a Creative Commons licence!
02/05/2007
OK the excerpt is dry as 3 day old turkey, but after reading a good chunk of this book it is actually pretty good.
12/13/2006
-itok=vcKIB5v1.jpg)