A modified comet, Burns-Caulfield, sending out a stream of data in an unknown direction is detected in the Kuiper belt. Somebody has just taken our picture, without asking. It came in especially handy when the real aliens came calling.”Īll of this is wound through the 'big' story in the book a rather unusual first contact scenario: in 2082 65'000 'Fireflies', spread around Earth in an even grid, simultaneously burn up in the atmosphere, sending data as they burn. “That distance – that chronic sense of being an alien among your own kind – it's not entirely a bad thing. It is the story of what this did to Siri, Siri's parents, and to Chelsea, his girlfriend, one of very few people who still prefer human contact (and sex!) in the first person, and not just in virtuality (yes, the birth rate is dropping radically in Siri's world). His friend Rob Paglino thinks that what came back from the clinic is not the same person, and, after some thought (because Siri now has to think about everything that concerns humans, and human interaction), Siri agrees. Keeton underwent, as a child, a radical hemispherectomy to get rid of his epilepsy (literally the removal of one side of his brain – yes, that's a realistic and existing medical intervention.).

It also is Peter's first foray into space – Rifters played in large parts under water (he is a trained marine biologist by previous trade), but Blindsight manages to project the same claustrophobic and slightly haunted feeling – the deep sea and space are not that different from that perspective (although the pressure differential is reversed, of course).īlindsight is the log book (for want of a better term) of one Siri Keeton, travelling, literally, where no human has gone before. The book was shortlisted for the Hugo Award, but lost out in a rather strong field. Blindsight is Peter Watts' first stand-alone novel after his much-praised 'Rifters' trilogy.

The blindsight by peter watts