>>25569808
If obscurity is the goal then I'd probably go with Starfish by Watts instead. 6x fewer ratings on Goodreads, and I personally prefer it to blindsight if I'm taking the whole series into consideration.

>>25570407
Starfish was really good but the sequel was fucking terrible. I had to force myself to finish it. I don't even remember what it was called.

>>25569808
Blindsight was great, Echopraxia was average, hoping he doesn't pull a GRRM and actually finishes Omniscience at some point before he dies of old age. He really needs to sort out his dialogue though. He falls into the same pitfall as other non-writers who became writers and just has his characters be quippy snarky millennial types (even though he himself is a boomer, he just defaults to that style of dialogue, very annoying).

>>25570941
>Echopraxia was average
I only remember the start where he was in some tents alone and there was some kind of danger approaching, and then later when it essentially retcons the entirely of Blindsight to be a psyop or something

might have to re-read it

>>25570941
Have you seen interviews with the guy? Dude is like a 15 year old in the body of a 60 year old. The kind of dude who gets punched by border cops while crossing to/from Canada for being a dipshit. He gives presentations where he complains about how disgusted he is when people show him pictures of their kids because humans are killing the planet. I haven't kept up with him for the last few years, but I assume he's having a full-on melty over data centers right now.
Anyway, his dialogue is definitely not a put-on for this guy. That's his authentic voice. If anything, the criticism should be that he puts too much of himself into all his characters.

Watts is an unpleasant doomer faggot. Nothing of value in his work.

>>25570996
Yeah it was a very different sort of ride to Blindsight. Not as compelling until they actually arrive at Icarus, but that happens way later than it should, too much pontificating on the spaceship before they get there.

>>25571014
Oh he's a total fucking nobhead irl, I don't for a second argue against that. But he writes decent fiction imo so I want him to keep doing so.

>>25571045
He is an unpleasant doomer faggot, but I think there is value in his work since they're quite entertaining.

>>25569808
Thread is getting derailed by watt fans or faggots. Eitherway, my recommendation (is a book I never read but heard a lot of praise) is factory of wasps.

>>25571045
pretty much. every single character he writes is an irredeemable piece of shit with a jared leto damaged tattoo on their forehead. you can kind of look past it when the underlying premise is so interesting (as is the case with Blindsight and Starfish) but in his later books it just becomes unpleasant to read with little payoff or real insight.

>>25571087
Blindsight could have only worked with a detached beta faggot over-analyzing everything as protagonist. It was appropriate for that story

I find the idea of a synthesist to be nonsense desu. Anyone can grasp the general idea behind some sciencey thing without having to go through like a weird unintuitive psychobabble interpreter who tries to come up with the best metaphor.

>bro this particle physics shit was like so trippy and stuff baseline humans could never understand!
But... we have that stuff now. We have science right now that is beyond the mechanical understanding of a vast chunk of humanity, but if you told those people 'yeah they're shooting very high energy particles at each other and then looking at what they emit when they collide', that's perfectly graspable as a concept.

>>25571088
Yeah, its the same for Starfish where the characters being pre-broken people is essential for the plot. The problem comes in the sequel where he carries those characters (and doubles down) into less interesting scenarios. That said I bailed out after Maelstrom, I just couldn't take it any more.

>>25571095
They're professional autists. They analyze people and situations without taking things for granted or being over-confident or any other typical human error.

It did feel weird how Paglino was going all "duuuuuuuude vampires can see the heckin cube optical illusion IN BOTH STATES AT ONCE" to a fucking synthesist, though

File: 1777226662514303.png (669 KB, 1602x640)

669 KB PNG

>>25569808
that book is shit.

>>25569808
Children of Time

>>25571169
vampires in sci-fi is kino though
>it's not le religious crucifix that they hate, it's LE RIGHT ANGLES
KINOOOOOOOOOOOOO

>>25571172
i bet you think the warhammer books are mind blowing

>>25571261
>if liking it doesn't make me look smart, THEN I CAN'T LIKE IT
must be exhausting to be a midwit

Echopraxia is a lot more readable if you imagine Valerie looks kind of like a 7 foot tall Audrey Hepburn

>>25569808
No, you just made a Watts thread, faggot.

>>25570941
>hoping he doesn't pull a GRRM and actually finishes Omniscience
Not happening, he burned his bridges with the publisher, who owns the IP wholesale.

>He really needs to sort out his dialogue though.
Not happening,.

>>25571054
>I think there is value in his work since they're quite entertaining
I sort of agree, but less so after reading his entire portfolio and discovering that the mf legitimately just writes about the same thing from different sides over and over again.

It is typical for sci-fi authors to have a visible pattern of idees fixes in their works, but Watts suffers from how narrow and ultimately hollow his bag of beloved concepts is.

>>25571088
>>25571096
>Blindsight could have only worked with a detached beta faggot over-analyzing everything as protagonist
Not really. Siri Keaton is one of the weakest parts of Blindsight, and there's really nothing about Blindsight's premise, structure, style, aesthetic or plot that actually requires Siri be to an autistic retard, or requires him period. He's just one of the numerous pointless protrusions on the cancerous starfish that is this novel.

>>25571346
When and how did he burn his bridges with the publisher? Last time I checked in on Watts (admittedly like a year ago) he was talking like he was making good progress on Omniscience.

>>25571014
Exactly who you want in a sci-fi author.

>>25571667
Lol no

>>25571377
great read

>Starfish
This has been on my radar for a very long while. Does it work well as a standalone? Do the other books need to be read? Are they even any good?

>>25571346
>>25571497
Does he really need a publisher? He's got enough of a reader base that he'll make some money selling it online self-publishing anyway.

>>25571014
Lmao bodied that faggot

>>25571713
No, not really a standalone. While not a total cliffhanger, it does anticipate another entry.
It has its highs and lows, but at its lowest it's still engaging. Do you like neurobiology and systems theory?

>>25571886
>Do you like neurobiology and systems theory?
Uhhhh... I enjoy stuff like Blood Music and I recently became a SCUBA diver so I'm stuck on underwater stories at present.

>>25571903
>Uhhhh...
Read something else. Watts' sf is as hard as sf gets when it comes to autistic tech details

>>25571087
desjardins and lubin did nothing wrong
>>25571713
They're good. I liked Starfish the least out of the Rifters Tetralogy.

>>25572028
Too late. Already got an ebook copy. Suck my dick.

>>25571903
Oh, good, you'll probably enjoy it then. I probably should have also listed sexually abused/abuser dialectic.
That's also a thing in there.

enjoy!

>>25572199
>suck my dick
the fuck? I wasn't saying it in a patronizing manner, I meant he's extremely in-depth with the hard scifi details and you didn't seem to be into that.

Remember this exchange when you drop the book, so you can be reminded of how much of a low IQ faggot you are

>>25572028
>sf is as hard as sf gets
No.

He just rips a lot of stuff from controversial scientific publications (in his own extremely liberal interpretation) and shits out a ref list. Neither makes his shit hard. In fact he's much softer than anything on Atomic Rockets.

Not to imply that hard=good, it's just that with Watts people take inspiration from actual scientific papers for hardness, even if the end product if further from plausible than Dune or Hyperion Cantos.

>>25573069
Okay all I wanted to say is that it's got entire paragraphs of just scientific mumbo jumbo and the guy didn't seem to be into it.
He got triggered by something and lashed out, and now you're being pedantic about what "hard sf" means.

For a board about reading you guys sure suck ass at it

>>25573112
Go be elitist about literal babies toys on /v/, ccocksucker. You're giving off the same vibe when you defend slop genre fiction like this. You are NOT an intellectual.

>>25570996
>side-quel is a retcon
I notice this sentiment among normalfags a lot where any sequel or additional entry in a series, even generic shit like the obligatory planned trilogy you see everywhere, "retcons" everything.
And considering you used the term retcon, the concepts of things such as p-zombies and Bruks being mindraped by Valerie arguably from the start seem to have went far over your head.

>>25571346
>Not happening, he burned his bridges with the publisher, who owns the IP wholesale.
He was pretty vocal about Tor not doing much of anything to advertise his work, poor editing, etc. I doubt much is lost there.

>>25572028
Yeah it's funny when people go "uhhh BUH BUH BUHHHHH all of his (cited works) are bullshit and false because I fucking said so and disagree!"

>>25573549
>Go be elitist
I'm saying he might not enjoy lengthy paragraphs of science details, holy shit you really do have comprehension problems

>N-no th-that's not wh-what I meant ACKCHUALLY! Y-you have reading comprehension p-problems
I know what you're doing, faggot.

>>25573647
You clearly can't read, so... why are you even here?

>>25573057
C'mon, he's not Egan. Watts never loses me and I'm a fucking invalid. It does help to have at least a passing interest in philosophy of consciousness. He pretty much primes you for all the "I've increased my gabanabaplaxin to interrupt the sodium exchange so I can have cooler seizures!"
I didn't need to purchase a graphing calculator = not so bad, really. OP will be fine.

The entropy stuff gets a little muddy, I'll give you that.

>>25573936
nigger I wasn't saying he's deep, I was saying he consistently has long ass paragraphs of nothing but autistic science detailsm, and that guy might not be into that shit

>>25573586
Yeah I guess I missed the bit where Echo retconned anything in Blindsight. Thought it just built in some perpendicular directions, but I'd accept a refresher.

>>25573647
autism level of cringe

>>25573941
Everybody's into that shit*

*citation needed

>Didn't get a reply to his previous bait reply
>Few hours pass
>A-AUTIST CRINGE!!!!
lmao

that guy’s not me and i posted the autism cringe comment

>>25573586
>Bruks being mindraped by Valerie arguably from the start
The endless speculative "ugh character X was actually puppeted by character Y who is actually just a puppet of character Z" muck is some of the weakest shit in Blindopraxia, because it is boring and pointless. Really makes me wish Watts gave less attention to the 500 approaches to totally-not-magical hypnosis, and instead tried harder in other areas, such as character work - like you are now flashbanged by the memory of Lianna actually being a real character present across most of Echopraxia, for some unknown reason.

>>25571674
Kys

File: HONOR_INTERVIEW_5_COPY-scaled.jpg (526 KB, 1707x2560)

526 KB JPG

>>25571377
Retarded slut

>>25574048
There's a Reddit thread where Watts answers a bunch of Echo plot questions. (There's like three threads total about the series if you look hard.)

>>25574048
Lianna is not a very interesting or memorable character, but I dont think she's really supposed to be.

>>25574109
I know.

>>25574264
>Lianna is not a very interesting or memorable character
Not only she is boring - she is also completely pointless.

>>25574264
She's a baseline human perspective.

>>25573948
what

>>25574103
Gee Bill! Two coats?!

>>25569808
The "imagine you're" device is really good and satisfying with how core it is the whole point of the book and its ideas. Especially right at the very end, this tantalizing ambiguity that proves so much of what the book had been saying about how impossible it is to be sure about the subjective experience of other beings, while also dovetailing with the idea that the purpose of consciousness is to nevertheless make a decision about what you personally accept as true in the face of ambiguity. You can make a call on Siris situation at the end and whether he's conscious the same way you see the cube one way or the other, basically at will. Just really good use of repetition to tie a book together and pay off all at once in a great final line.

Broadly its very elegant for a first contact story to be about the inability to connect. The alien cannot be anything ultimately good for us the same way Siri wasn't what his girlfriend thought he was or needed him to be when things got serious and she needed a normal human to fully reciprocate the relationship she thought she had with him. Even if he was fully conscious, he was too autistically different and aberrantly human to come through for her and make her death more bearable. She misinterpreted his earlier behaviour for a precursor to normal love and loyalty the same way Rorshach seems to be communicating.

>>25571169
It's true i was expecting a rama adjacent type story

File: war chtorr.png (155 KB, 194x314)

155 KB PNG

>>25569808
If you're a fan of sci-fi horror or Starship Troopers you should definitely check out War against the Chtorr. An alien ecosystem invades earth and drives everyone crazy. There's a good bit of homosexuality, pedophilia and people getting eaten alive though so it isn't for the faint of heart.

>>25576477
She's a mouthpiece for the Bicamerals since they speak in incomprehensible gibberish that only she can understand. She's technically a baseline human but the narrative treats her like an extension of the hivemind. Bruks is the baseline human perspective.

File: lost-horizon-james-hilton.jpg (41 KB, 312x475)

41 KB JPG

Was a very popular book in its day, but I doubt anyone here would have read it. It's very short, but very, very good.

File: 20261009_003111.jpg (2.77 MB, 4032x2268)

2.77 MB JPG

>>25578510
Not only have I read it, but I have that exact edition

File: ShelteringSky.jpg (21 KB, 263x378)

21 KB JPG

>>25578510
>>25578563
Normally i refuse to participate meaningfully in threads anymore because i hate all the women and pseuds here, and i certainly can smell them in this thread, but as im in a good mood from whipping out the ol lost horizon, this lesser gem is anyone's for the taking

I also get to post relevant this
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yocWjVBHK0g&lk
You can see me in the crowd. I hate women

>>25569808
The Yacoubian Building - Alaa Al Aswany

>>25578563

That's awesome my friend

>>25578580

I shall grab a copy of sheltering sky when I can

>>25578208
>She's a mouthpiece for the Bicamerals
Except not really, since all of her mouthpiecing comes down to
>- You don't understand Siri and that's okay, just because their actions have no comprehensible foundations doesn't mean that they are batshit insane, maybe the spiritual revelations they experience from brain cancer induced hallucinations are actually more in line with reality than what you call your conscious experience. Maybe that is the real brain cancer induced hallucination, and they see things more clearly. Don't be a bigot!

Which by itself is an appendage on Watts' study of the idea of bicameral mind. But like everything else Watts speculates about theory of mind it returns to the same postulate of "qualia is real and it's actually a unique hyperdisfunctional and extremely harmful atavism with no likes in known nature". Which is neat horror idea for a shocking perspective twist, but is not just meaningless as scientific speculation, much worse - it's boring as such. It basically does the Lovecraftian thing, but removes all the mystery by saying exactly what is incomprehensibly transcendental about Yog-Sothoth - he is without conscious thought as Jesus is without sin, and that somehow means he can walk on water and contain multitudes.

Notice how we naturally leave Lianna way the fuck behind in all this.

>>25577902
>You can make a call on Siris situation at the end and whether he's conscious
Not really, as in Blindopraxia the absence of consciousness in intelligent beings is manifested through the ability to do gun kata, dodge bullets and see the future, while Siri is still the same useless piece of shit in the end.

>Broadly its very elegant for a first contact story to be about the inability to connect.
Except I can name very few known first contact story that are as inelegant as Blindsight. Lem's Fiasco it ain't.

>The alien cannot be anything ultimately good for us the same way Siri wasn't what his girlfriend thought he was
I don't remember Siri decapitating Chelsea or manipulating her into blowing herself up. Point being it's a clumsy parallel in that Siri is too brain-broken for his contact with Helen to be comfortably productive, while the starting premise of the whole plot is that Rorschach, in it's infinite unconscious wisdom, responding to a thing it cannot understand with active if somewhat detached malice.
> he was too autistically different and aberrantly human to come through for her
Not necessarily. Chelsea's farewell can be very easily interpreted as extremely normal and neurotypical cowardice. It's not a lobe amputee thing to be paralyzed by the fear of doing the wrong thing when people need you. Siri's real problem comes from him utterly lacking any other characteristics beyond "broken mess", brain-damaged or otherwise. For the world's most capable synthesist we don't actually see him build any semantic bridges between anyone. I'm just reminded of Orlando Venetti in Egan's Diaspora as a character with similar concept and role, but who manages to portray both infinitely better, while also remaining a relatable and fundamentally broken person. And Egan is not a fucking high bar to clear in terms of writing ability.
>"you don't get it he's synthesist in the meta sense here in that we're reading his accou~"
In that sense he's not very good at conveying the relevant thoughts either.

Don't look at this as relentless shitting on the whole thing though, I just think that the gap between Watts' capacity for daring originality of thought and his skill as a writer is truly cosmic, and Blindopraxia suffered immensely from the lack of both writing restraint and editing. That and he could've gone for more than one thing over and over again.

>>25569808
The Case of Comrade Tulayev - Victor Serge

>William Carlos Williams- In The American Grain
Really cool essays/stories on America by one of her many fine writers in danger of obscurity.

>>25571088
Why is analysis bad?