Vision aveugle

by Peter Watts

No cover — Peter Watts: Vision aveugle (French language, 2021, Le Bélial')

French language

Published May 15, 2021 by Le Bélial'.

ISBN:: 978-2-84344-987-1

(3 reviews)

Blindsight is a hard science fiction novel by Canadian writer Peter Watts, published by Tor Books in 2006. It won the Seiun Award for best translated novel and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. The story follows a crew of astronauts sent out as the third wave, following two series of probes, to investigate a trans-Neptunian Kuiper belt comet dubbed "Burns-Caulfield" that has been found to be transmitting an unidentified radio signal to an as-yet unknown destination elsewhere in the Solar System, followed by their subsequent first contact. The novel explores themes of identity, consciousness, free will, artificial intelligence, neurology, and game theory as well as evolution and biology. Blindsight is available online under a Creative Commons license. Its sequel (or "sidequel"), Echopraxia, came out in 2014.

2 editions

David H reviewed Blindsight (Firefall, #1) by Peter Watts

One of my favorite sci-fi novels of all time

5 stars

As someone on Peter Watts' own site is quoted, "Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts." Reader beware.

I re-read it just recently. This book fundamentally shifted my perspective on my own humanity, and maybe not in a good way. But it did a really good job! I think it took me a few reads to really get a handle on what was happening in the story and that only made the hammer blows of its conclusion stronger.

Has a permanent space on my shelf, except my copy keeps walking out of my house because I lend it out so much.

The author has started giving away this book, available here for free on his own site: www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

But you might want to consider donating: www.rifters.com/real/donation.htm

Once you've read the book, check out this gorgeous fan-made film: blindsight.space/

gregorgross reviewed Blindsight (Firefall, #1) by Peter Watts

Give me more!

5 stars

What readers love about AIs is that they often really want to understand humans and thus, observe them closely, and register all their body language signals etc. But we have no idea if an AI would be interested in humans. It's just good for human readers if it does.

In this book, Watts does something similar but without AI: there is this person who's lost half their brain by accident, so in order to understand humans, this person needs to observe them very closely and detect all their signals. Unlike we "normal humans" who get these signals subconsciously, this person evaluates all the signals consciously, right before our reading eyes. This was what I liked the most.

But the rest of the story is absolutely great, too. How the aliens move unseen etc. I really like Peter Watts and damn! Just accept the vampire because it's cool and makes sense …

But the rest of the story is absolutely great, too. How the aliens move unseen etc. I really like Peter Watts and damn! Just accept the vampire because it's cool and makes sense in this story.

David Scrimshaw

rated it

Sept. 20, 2012

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