[hikingsimulator]

One book stuck out to me this year: Blindsight by Peter Watts.

What happens when humankind on the verge of post-scarcity suffers its first alien contact -- truly alien contact. A team of engineered humans is sent to meet them.

What really stuck out to me is how the content of the book could be applied to a potential AGI -- an alien, intelligent entity that we can't really understand and still have to interact with. I can't go further without delving into spoilers. It's really good. But, also, very bleak.

[nervousvarun]

If you like dense SF you'll like Watts. Specifically Watts is like Gibson, Banks, Stross etc. in that he has throwaway ideas in his books that would be the entire basis of a novel for lessor authors. With Blindsight most famously it's his Vampire character but also there's the character with beneficial split-personalities, "heaven", and more others may remember that have faded for me since I read the books 5+ years ago.

Incredible book and your post has reminded me that I need to reread it.

[xyzzy_plugh]

It's also free to read online: https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

This is definitely a book that stuck with me over the years. The concepts were very foreign and unusual at the time I read it, and I still find them novel to think about. Definitely in my top five recommendations for sci-fi reading.

[euroderf]

I haven't read the book, just some plot spoilers, so take this with a big grain of salt: it seems to be yet another book that flatters the reader by positing that humans are relatively more sentient than other spacefaring species. Where are the books that posit the opposite (which I'd think is actually much more likely) ?

[0cf8612b2e1e]

(Spoilers naturally)

Trying to summarize a half-remembered book, but the big revelation is that the aliens are not sentient at all. They are rather operating on instinct. The point of the book was more to discuss the nature of being human and is consciousness/sentience all that necessary. Lots of philosophical waxing on the nature of thought.

As to your question about other species, I think you are posing a rather challenging problem. How does an author write from the perspective of a being significantly more intelligent than themselves? Their actions and motivations become wholly alien as comprehension is not within our reach. One can justify any alien action as the unknowable motivations of a capacious god.

[euroderf]

To paraphrase Arthur C Clarke, any sufficiently advanced alien species is indistinguishable from God. And in that spirit, Merry Christmas...

[muffinman26]

The Three-Body Problem is an iconic example of the opposite, with humans simply struggling to survive in a universe where every other space-faring species is vastly more intelligent.

[ajoseps]

I really enjoyed this book as well. Just a heads up for anyone interested, there is a vampire character, which seems very out of place initially, but just something that needs to be accepted for the story. It does all kind of fit in by the end though.

[citizenpaul]

Blind sight has been recommended enough times so I'll add a note about the sequel.

Watts wrote a loosely related sequel called Echopraxia that was not nearly as good as Blindsight but expands on some of the concepts. It was much more of a slog to read through and a bit confusing to follow the story and I had to force myself to finish it. If you are thinking of picking that up after reading Blindsight.

Both books have a good section after the story where Watts explains the research and citations of how he came up with the story. If you read that part it may break your brain in a questioning existence kind of way.

[sershe]

Heh, +1 on Blindsight and also on the sequel not being as good :) I think Watts had remarked something like, people complained there was not enough action, so he added more action. But based on the comments I keep seeing (and Amazon stars) people like it much less...

[jzl]

To each their own, but I thought this book was at best just ok. Had some neat parts but overall I didn’t get very into it. To anyone reading this comment, it’s from 2006 btw, not that the OP specified new books in 2022.

[dobladov]

This book gave me mixed feelings as well, spoilers ahead.

On the good side, I think the author is brilliant, the way he created this new race of aliens, how he explains their physiology, faster than what it takes for your brain to process images, their camouflage, how their body is a whole lens, their communication system, their way to accumulate energy, etc... that was amazing and worth reading.

On the bad side, I hated every character in the book, it's maybe expected to not like the protagonist with his "lack of empathy", but who makes a crew of such a bunch of uncooperative people, is like nobody wanted to do their job properly; All their conversations felt hostile, not sure how to put it, but I would expect a sense of wonder, curiosity and cooperation from the people sent to do a first alien contact.

The part that I disliked the most is how the human ship felt so abstract, they are in a ship, but everyone stays in some sort of independent tent, I thought this was my problem maybe I missed some key information about it, but after reading some critics, other people also have this feeling of disorientation.

Overall, it's worth it if you really like the genre, but not a must in my opinion.

[MH15]

Check out this short film some artists made based on Blindsight in collaboration with Watts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkR2hnXR0SM

[lostmsu]

I heard that video game Prey from 2017 is related.