Blindsight

By: Peter Watts

Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith

Set in 2082, Peter Watts' Blindsight is fast-moving, hard SF that pulls readers into a futuristic world where a mind-bending alien encounter is about to unfold.

After the Firefall, all eyes are locked heavenward as a team of specialists aboard the self-piloted spaceship Theseus hurtles outbound to intercept an unknown intelligence.

©2006 Peter Watts (P)2008 Recorded Books LLC

I don't claim to understand it...

This is a terrific exploration of intelligence/sentience, or what humankind understands intelligence to be, and the potentiality of meeting/becoming aliens that exist in a manner inconceivable to us.

The concepts are DEEP. Are we really human if we're hitched to computers. Can our brains hold more than one functional personality? Are there aliens so smart and fast that to them we'd look like imbeciles? If there are aliens, what are the chances that we'd ever find them, ever understand them, ever "know" them?

The vampire component is sort of beside the point - it's just one more alien (meaning foreign to human) in a book that is exploring the nature of being alien. (Even those characters that are human are explored for their "alien" characteristics).

Don't read this if you're expecting action (there is little action) or if you're not in the mood to explore the nature of alien-ness because you'll be disappointed. That being said - the narration is very good and the story is engaging and very hard to put down once you get started.

(Though I'm not making any promises that it makes sense in the end... I'm still not sure I understand.)

I won't give it one star. but ...

I can't believe I just wasted that much time. it's as if the writer is so smart that his writing jumped around. the narrator was fine. it was the sloppy cohesiveness.

good luck.

How can i even put my feelings to words?!!!

I’m tearful at the moment. Absolutely gutted and in love. What a phenomenal story. It mixed all of my favorite ideas; Do androids dream of electric sheep, Prometheus, ALIEN, cyberpunk universe. It’s perfect. i’m blown away. please read and read again!!!

Challenging story

Any additional comments?

If you have some understanding of human neurophysiology this is a great story. That said, there is quite a bit of technical jargon. This is not your average "humans meet aliens" space opera. Instead it's an examination of the nature of consciousness and how humans would be able to understand beings that have a totally different way of existing and communicating.
The reader was adequate, but his tendency to have very similar voices for all the characters sometimes left me confused as to who was speaking and when transitions were happening.

Narrator Is Awful

The story is great. A little too verbose but overall thought provoking. The narrator is monotone and puts me to sleep. He sounds as if he is recording in a library trying not to disturb the other patrons.

Watts has seriously overcomplicated a grest story

The story is a great story. But dear God Watts jumps around so much and leaves sooo many holes in the back story. This is an extremely tedious listen/read. He goes out of his way to use words that were absolutely unneeded and it feels like the contemplations he is trying induce in the reader are his and.not the characters. I say this because he doesn't use language that fit the characters. His historical recollections of society in up to 2083 makes no sense and assumes the listener will fill in the missing information. I am only three hours in and I am struggling with his syntax and word choice. They don't make sense. You add that with the holes he has left and oddly timed character recollections and listening to it feels like a job. If I were reading this I would have had to go back and reread so many pages i would not have made it past chapter 2. I will probably only finish it because I already spent the money. But so far it is a frustrsting experience. the bouncing ball scene at the crew meeting was such a useless scene and waste of time. If you enjoy an author who wore out his thesarus and puts too much effort into seeming extremely smart then this book is for you. For me it felt like simply telling the story would hsve made this a blockbuster or even a chance at a movie.

The performance was good enough. You could tell the narrator wasn't enjoying the story either because at times he comes across flat as though in his head he to is trying to figure out parts of the story but he is on a time limit.

promising Thriller that Fizzles out

perhaps I'm missing a deeper meaning, but after the stage was set it didn't really go anywhere.

a lot of interesting concepts are presented but never developed.

No one knows where this going

I had high hopes for this and the writer could definitely turn a phrase, but the story just got lost. There was decent scifi and reasonable world building but the big parts of the plot just never came together. I was especially mystified by the ending, which rambled and never coalesced. Closure was unavailable and I'm not interested in where a sequel might go.

Incredibly intelligent and well written

Loved this book and listened through it in 2 days. Going to start the sequel immediately.

I'm not intelligent enough to fully comprehend every concept that was described but still enjoyed listening to it.

The narrator was fine but sometimes didn't differentiate between different characters' voice well enough.

The big payoff wasn't very exciting at the end of the book and the most interesting character was underutilized.

The journey to arrive to the conclusion was fascinating and full of mystery. Kept me engaged throughout.

Definitely recommend to fans of hard sci-fi.

So good!

This book requires your attention while listening but is so very worth it. So richly full of humanity and whatever may be its opposite, without and within. My favorite!