2026 Book Review #13
This one took me a good bit to read, and for good reason, because it's the first properly dense sci-fi book I've tackled. Today, let's look at Blindsight by Peter Watts.
It's difficult to figure out where to begin with this book, because oh god is it dense as hell. This was my first properly dense sci-fi book, and it can be a slog to read at times when it's trying to establish its worldbuilding. An interesting slog, but one where most of the information just slides off my brain.
The book is technically a sci-fi alien first contact story, but it's actually just the author reading a shit ton of scientific articles about neurology and wanting to talk about literally everything he could. Not all of it is particularly relevant to the story, but it's definitely interesting. The sci-fi setting seems to be one where the brain has been fully understood biologically - there are procedures and drugs and technology that can fully alter your perception, personality, beliefs, etc. and it's treated as entirely normal. It's a good decision for a book that delves into as much neurology bullshit as this one does.
The only issue I have with this hyperfocus on sci-fi neurology is that it's based on an early 2000s understanding of neurology (which makes sense, since that's when the book was written), and it occasionally veers a bit too close to the "autism is a superpower!" trope that crops up a lot in sci-fi. It never quite gets to the same level as, say, the 2018 Predator movie, but it has moments where it treats actual neurological disorders in a somewhat romanticized way. Issue is that it just as often delves into the actual disabilities people with these disorders struggle with, so it is usually showing both sides, so it's a difficult thing to judge.
As for the story itself, I think it has a very slow and meandering start where it doesn't do a particularly good job at explaining what's going on. I still don't understand major events and concepts from the first quarter of the book because they were described so opaquely that my mind refused to grab onto it (I still don't know what the hell the Fireflies were).
However, once they actually reach "the location" about a third of the way through the book, it locks in and starts to explain the events and concepts a lot more clearly and understandably. It still lost me here and there, and there's a lot of blank spaces where I couldn't tell you what happened, but there's just as many incredibly interesting, impactful, or engaging sequences that kept me reading despite the intermittent confusion. Its approach to alien life was really interesting, with an incredibly intriguing analysis of how we define consciousness and intelligence, but I won't go into it too deeply to avoid spoilers.
Edit: I fully forgot that this book has vampires when making the original post. Like, full as, actual vampires. The author does neat and interesting things with them, but like what the fuck
Overall, I'd give the book probably a 7/10 - the latter two thirds of the book are full of so many interesting concepts that I can't give it any lower, but the first third and many in-between segments were so confusing that I can't give it any higher. I'm definitely going for an easier book next, after reading Southern Reach and then this one. I think I need a break from "interesting" books for a bit.
