BOOK REVIEW: Blindsight by Peter Watts

"Blindsight" was nominated for the Hugo, Campbell, Sunburst, Locus, and Aurora awards. It is available in multiple languages, and, what's interesting, the English version is shared on the Internet under a CC license. You can legally read it on multiple websites, like this one

Imagine you are Siri Keeton. You wake up in the agony of resurrection, gasping for breath after a record-breaking 140-day sleep. You feel your blood, push through your arteries, which are dried up during the months of sleeping. The body slowly, painfully fills up. The cells were blurred with motionlessness. You are like a little doll, frozen in some perverse rigor vitae. You would scream, but you're out of breath.

You remember that vampires do this all the time. It's normal for them, they have such a remarkable way of saving resources. The vampires are back, pieced together from junk genes - blood-drenched sociopaths, and highly functioning autistic people. The Commander of this mission is one of them. A part of his genes also lives in your body so that you too can rise from the dead, here at the edge of interstellar space. Nobody will go beyond Jupiter unless they become at least a bit of a vampire.

"(...) our conscious selves only see a simulation, and interpretation of reality in their heads, refreshed endlessly with input data from the senses. What happens when the senses fail, but the model, spoiled by some trauma or tumor, does not refresh? (...) How long does it take to realize that the world we see no longer reflects the one we live in? That we are blind? (…) References to logic fail. (...) There is no room for them inside the "Rorschach".
Quote from the reviewed book

To get in touch with an alien civilization, we as humans need to improve our skills in astronomy, biotechnology, mathematics, psychology. Otherwise, the meeting will never take place, or we will simply receive a signal that we will not be able to understand, and how to respond to it. Anyway, even at a seemingly high level of advancement, something can always surprise. Blindsight raises questions about both foreign and interpersonal contacts, and where they can lead. It deals with the problem of humanity and the issues of improving our internal and external nature, after which we can become more "something" than "someone".

Strange signals sent to the ground force a highly developed research vessel called Theseus to be sent into space. The team consists of the best people. Among them is Siri - an observer, whose task is to inform the boss about all the achievements. Theseus meets an alien intelligence, also like a ship, which he calls Rorschach. Both the first contact and an attempt to communicate will soon take a surprising form.

Siri describes in his reports the world full of vampires, dangerous, impenetrable, and alien creatures. The vampirism described by Watts is as intriguing as the land they inhabit because there are also people around them, although they have little in common with our species. Although the brain is still one of the key organs, the body can be split, change. In this high technology, natural feelings such as friendship, compassion, or closeness have almost disappeared. Therefore, the dialogues between the characters look quite specific, and the described events both on the ground and on Theseus are only a dry, colorless narrative. It is such dialogues and monologues that make "Blindsight" a unique novel. For as you can see, high development often goes hand in hand with anesthesia and a general lack of awareness.

Watts in his book shows something controversial: By developing in almost every field of science and technology, we have become an unknown form. Incomprehensible, intriguing, and repulsive at the same time. Such an even, defect-free, perfect tissue. One of the conclusions that came to my mind? With high development, we do not need aliens, because we, sooner or later, will become them.

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MY SCORE	3/5

Thank you for reading,
@papi.mati