Watts tries to make the characters exciting but they are ultimately forgettable cogs in the clockwork that drive his kernel of an idea that a vampire should be driving a starship in a harsh world of real science and Newtonian physics. But it wouldn't do to overplay the vampire angle - while Watts gives a biologically and evolutionary plausible background for their origin and fate (I think - disclaimer - I'm no biologist), there is much more to his book than that. He’s supposed to confrom to the “feral archetype” because, as Watts explains, http://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm that’s the whole point. You can remember it by ends with -thal.Have a nice day!

Highly recommend the book to anyone that hasn’t read it. Change ), http://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm, http://www.sfdiplomat.net/sf_diplomat/2007/01/review_blindsig.html, I just raised $25.00 USD for my local children’s hospital through, I just raised $100.00 USD for my local children’s hospital through, I just raised $250.00 USD for my local children’s hospital through. Thanks for the review — I read two of the books in the rifters trilogy (must make time for the third!! It's implied that their alien way of thinking is actually the status quo in the universe and that human self-awareness is an aberration. The prehistoric vampire was a very very deadly predator. ), this one sounds cool too.

It’s an old, old literary device with so many examples that I won’t even go into explaining the genre since this novel’s plot is basically a generic JRPG, only less satisfying and missing any form of excitement. In conclusion, your review has some good points, completely misses the book’s premises, and at the end of the day works just as well, if not better, as sour milk at turning audiences away. Cookies help us deliver our Services. But I guess that’s a bit original in subverting the Hannibal Lecter/Dexter archetype of a person with no empathy being a serial killer. I'm not sure about the long bones: neanderthal diet was something like 90% meat, and they were stocky. Sirri suggests that by the time he returns to Earth, the vampires would have exterminated humanity and taken their places as rightful owners of the world.

But it wouldn't do to overplay the vampire angle - while Watts gives a biologically and evolutionary plausible background for their origin and fate (I think - disclaimer - I'm no biologist), there is much more to his book than that. For another taste, consider Blindsight’s protagonist, a ... after a crew of barely human neural nonpareils—including a vampire 2 —are sent to a distant fringe of the Solar System, where they Ender’s Game is not a hard science fiction book at all. Blindsight also fails the reader with it characters, who are stock misfits, unsympathetically dull, who seem to be moving through their lives as slowly and ponderously as the ship that they inhabit and the plot which drives them. | Reply. Blindsight is a hard Sci-fi novel by Peter Watts which deals with the impending invasion of the Earth and the small crew of misfits who are sent to deal with the problem. It is a rare novel that has the potential to set science fiction on an entirely new course. Class 3.

I wish they’d make a movie of some Peter Watts stuff. There's a reason hibernating mammals don't do these things. Closer to home, vampires cause a predation PTSD in humans that dates from long before recorded history, and is apparently so hardwired that simply being face-to-face with one induces fear, if not outright panic. The point of the book is to explore the themes of consciousness, of what it means to be an intelligent being, and what would happen if humanity ever met another kind of being that is completely alien to us. The idea of vampirism is based on a manlike-monster that hunts men and eats their blood in the dead of night. Where evolution meets science fiction and art. TrackBack URI. For those that have read the novel Blindsight, what do you all think of the vampires in the story? Watts, deciding he'd rather have the book be easily available for anyone to read, put the whole thing up on his website for free.

Despite being nominated for a Hugo Award for "Best Novel", the novel is hard to find in stores (owing to troubles with the publisher). The entire crew of the Theseus, except for Siri. ( Log Out /  Hey, CorporateState01, just a quick heads-up:Neandertal is actually spelled Neanderthal. Not exactly a Love Potion, but after Siri has half of his brain removed, his mother secretly gives him stimulants to promote mother/child bonding.

For those that don’t know Blindsight is a hard sf novel where vampires were a resurrected subspecies of homo sapiens that went extinct after this neurological phenomenon known as the “crucifix glitch” wiped them out. - From Blindsight Notes, https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm. The vampire piloting a starship was not a main selling point at all- in fact Sarasti didn’t even pilot it, he’s not even capitain; he’s mission commander. For those that have read the novel Blindsight, what do you all think of the vampires in the story? A crew full of odd and eccentric specialists are aboard: a linguist with surgically-induced multiple personalities, a biologist who's given up his sensory pathways for machine augmentation and perception, a top-brass soldier known for treason, and the protagonist is an information analyst with half his brain removed.

Human awareness is portrayed as inherently self-destructive in the creation of Heaven and the Singularity. Vampires were accidentally rediscovered when a form of experimental gene therapy went curiously awry, kick-starting long-dormant genes in an autistic child and provoking a series of (ultimately fatal) physical and neurological changes. This use of character archetype only works in a few select works, since the idea of vampirism is based in sensuality, intimacy, romanticism with overtones of rape. In many ways it is a novel that wears it’s that conceit on its sleeve for all to see in the ham-fisted manner of a Hot Topic Goth out looking to save the world. - the true captain of the ships is the AI 'Captain', whose creators assumed that the human crew would prefer to take orders from the inhuman, sociopathic Sarasti. Due to the relatively brief lifespan of this lineage, these changes were not extensive and overlapped considerably with conspecific allometries; differences become diagnostically significant only at large sample sizes (N>130).

The characters are indeed dull, and I would critique that while Siri is a rather interesting narrator, he doesn’t seem to have the same sort of sociopathic tendencies that a hypothetical “Chinese Room” character would have. For example, there is the issue of Amanda Bates' mutiny against Jukka Sarasti, the messages from Rorschach, the Burns-Caulfield comet, and the very nature of the, is the one somewhat-reassuring ace-up-the-sleeve the crew seems to have in the face of the incomprehensible. The lungfish torpor and crucifix glitch are just added to make a biologically plausible vampire. The “idea of vampirism is based in sensuality, intimacy, romanticism with overtones of rape”? Blindsight [Watts, Peter] on Amazon.com. The crucifix glitch is (Watts admits) improbable, whereas the seasonal torpor is found in mammals including primates, and humans do have the gene for it. Watts attempts to explain the supernatural presence in book as a product of genetic engineering in keeping with hard sci-fi rules and it only works as a selling point of the novel. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. All of humanity. More gracile than either neandertal or sapiens, gross physical divergence from sapiens included slight elongation of canines, mandibles, and long bones in service of an increasingly predatory lifestyle. Among its most famous of members is Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama.

From their perspective, since they lack sentience, they assume the only reason to broadcast things like that to somebody is to, Jukka Sarasti/Theseus' final strategy against. (Self-destructing a spaceship? The parent commenter can reply with 'delete' to delete this comment. The book really does read slowly, but I would ascribe that less due to his pacing and more that his ability to write action scenes needs a bit more work. This is mostly due to the mishandling of the character archetype, utilizing the nontraditional ‘borderline feral’ interpretation of the vampire. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. For those that don’t know Blindsight is a hard sf novel where vampires were a resurrected subspecies of homo sapiens that went extinct after this neurological phenomenon known as the “crucifix glitch” wiped them out. If, however, like me you prefer your sci-fi hardcore then this may well be for you and, of course, it has vampires. Blindsight is a hard sci-fi novel by Canadian author and marine biologist Peter Watts.

Comment by TV Reviewer — July 2, 2009 @ 2:53 am What we don't do, is dessicate like lungfishes, and I don't think we could crack our skeletons as described in the book, because our ribs are too solid.

In the tropics, people are ganglier for climatic reasons alone, although hunter gatherers there tend to lean toward foraging, not hunting.

The site may not work properly if you don't, If you do not update your browser, we suggest you visit, Press J to jump to the feed. All The Tropes Wiki is a FANDOM Anime Community. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. --Karl Schroeder "Blindsight is a tour de force, redefining the First Contact story for good. ( Log Out /  Not to say your review doesn’t have merits. It is a novel that lives and dies by this high concept and it fails because of the restraints of hard science fiction. A close literary cousin to Blindsight is the much better Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, a novel which is also set in a hard science fiction world with misfits saving the world, but is much better written and does not rub your face in the fact that it is based on real science, a major problem of the genre. The Scramblers picked up our various transmissions from Earth and, after decrypting the signals, get incomprehensible (to them) statements about "feelings" and "identity". | Reply, RSS feed for comments on this post.

Blindsight is boring, slow, completely misuses its premise, and at the end of the day works just as well, if not better, as warm milk at putting its audience to sleep. WARNING! the ship itself, the Theseus, is artificially intelligent and was the, sapience (that is, self-awareness, sentience, and the empathy that goes with it) is unnecessary for advanced intelligence and creative thinking. ( Log Out /  Looks like you're using new Reddit on an old browser. They are all lead by a literal vampire[1], a sociopathic genius and cannibal who, nonetheless, is the only one coldly-logical enough to run the mission.

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