BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.2.3.1//EN TZID:Europe/London X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/London BEGIN:VEVENT UID:208@sciencefictionbookclub.org DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20170710T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20170710T220000 DTSTAMP:20260121T150922Z URL:https://www.sciencefictionbookclub.org/events/238423271/ SUMMARY:Blindsight - Peter Watts - Hugo Nominee - Part of our 2017 CONTACT season DESCRIPTION:This novel is part of the Science Fiction Book Club's 2017 seas on. Where we will explore our greatest hope\, and fear. Contact.\n\nThe te xt of Blindsight was released by the author under a creative commons licen ce which means its free to download. So for those who are comfortable read ing on an electronic device\, get reading\, it's available for free on Goo dReads :)\n\n\n\nTwo months have past since a myriad of alien objects clen ched about the Earth\, screaming as they burned. The heavens have been sil ent since until a derelict space probe hears whispers from a distant comet . Something talks out there: but not to us.Who should we send to meet the alien\, when the alien doesn't want to meet?Send a linguist with multiple - personality disorder and a biologist so spliced with machinery that he c an't feel his own flesh. Send a pacifist warrior and a vampire recalled fr om the grave by the voodoo of paleogenetics. Send a man with half his mind gone since childhood. Send them to edge of the solar system\, praying you can trust such freaks and monsters with the fate of a world. You fear the y may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find - but you'd g ive anything for that to be true\, if you knew what was waiting for them.. .\n\n\n\nPraise for Blindsight:\n\nBlindsight is fearless: a magnificent\, darkly gleaming jewel of a book that hurdles the contradictions inherent in biochemistry\, consciousness\, and human hearts without breaking stride . Imagine you are Siri Keeton. Imagine you are nothing at all. You don't h ave to\; Peter Watts has done it for you.\n--Elizabeth Bear\, author of Ha mmered\n\nBlindsight is a tour de force\, redefining the First Contact sto ry for good. Peter Watts' aliens are neither humans in funny make-up nor i ncomprehensible monoliths beyond human comprehension -- they're something new and infinitely more disturbing\, forcing us to confront unpalatable po ssibilities about the nature of consciousness. It's good\, and it'll make your skin crawl when you stop to think about it. Strongly recommended: thi s may be the best hard SF read of 2006.\n--Charles Stross\n\nBlindsight is excellent. It's state-of-the-art science fiction: smart\, dark and it gra bs you by the throat from page one. Like a C J Cherryh book it makes you f eel the danger of the hostile environment (or lack of one) out there. And unlike many books it plays with some fascinating possibilities in human de velopment (I like the idea of some disabilities becoming advantages here) and some disconcerting ideas about human consciousness (understanding what action preceding though actually means). What else can I say? Thanks for giving me the privilege of reading this.\n-- Neal Asher\n\n"A brilliant pi ece of work\, one that will delight fans of hard science fiction\, but wil l also demonstrate to literary fans that contemporary science fiction is d ynamic and fascinating literature that demands to be read."\n--The Edmonto n Journal\n\n"Watts explores the nature of consciousness in this stimulati ng hard SF novel\, which combines riveting action with a fascinating alien environment. Watts puts a terrifying and original spin on the familiar al ien contact story." --Publishers Weekly "(starred review)\n\n"Astonishingl y readable book. . . . [Watts is] one of the two or three best hard SF wri ters around\, and this is his finest book to date."\n--Interzone\n\nWatts explores the nature of consciousness in this stimulating hard SF novel\, w hich combines riveting action with a fascinating alien environment. Watts puts a terrifying and original spin on the familiar alien contact story.\n Publishers Weekly (starred review)\n\nPeter Watts has taken the core myths of the First Contact story and shaken them to pieces. The result is a sho cking and mesmerising performance\, a tour-de-force of provocative and oft en alarming ideas. It is a rare novel that has the potential to set scienc e fiction on an entirely new course. Blindsight is such a book.\n-- Karl S chroeder\n\nIt seems clear that every second Peter Watts is not actually w riting must be spent reading\, out at the cutting edge of all the sciences and all the arts at once. Only that can't be so\, because he obviously sp ends fully as much time thinking about everything he's read\, before he si ts down to turn it into story. His latest starts by proving that there are circumstances in which half a brain is better than one\, or even a dozen- and then builds steadily in strangeness and wonder with every page. If Sam uel R. Delany\, Greg Egan and Vernor Vinge had collaborated to update Algi s Budrys's classic Rogue Moon for the new millenium\, they might have prod uced a novel as powerful and as uniquely beautiful as Blindsight. Its narr ator is one of the most unforgettable characters I have ever encountered i n fiction.\n--Spider Robinson\, co-author of Variable Star by Robert A. He inlein and Spider Robinson ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.sciencefictionbookclub.org/wp-conten t/uploads/2025/08/2017-07_-_Blindsight_-_Peter_Watts.jpg CATEGORIES:Book Discussion,Contact LOCATION:The Golden Lion\, 25 King Street\, St James\, London\, SW1Y 6QY\, United Kingdom GEO:51.506294;-0.137464 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=25 King Street\, St James\, London\, SW1Y 6QY\, United Kingdom;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=The Golden Lion:geo:51.506294,-0.137464 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20170326T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR