If you didn't believe I was an addict before, you will now for sure

So on the weekend I bought myself a few books as an early birthday present (because the pile of books I haven't read so far was not quite big enough), and discovered, to my chagrin, that I already owned one of them. In hardcover. And hadn't read it yet.

(clearing throat)

So, I have two options:

1. Return it.

2. See if any of you would be interested in getting it:

Blindsight by Peter Watts, a Canadian science fiction author whose other novels I've really enjoyed (explaining why I bought this one twice): "Sf's best visionaries have played out the ever-popular theme of alien first contact in so many different ways that fresh variations are now in short supply. Yet Watts manages an entirely unique approach in this mind-bending novel. In 2082, with utopia waiting just down the electronic pipeline in a virtual domain called Heaven, Earth experiences the sudden shock of a baffling extraterrestrial visitation in the form of bright probes that surround the globe. Within days, the lights vanish, leaving only a faint signal of outbound communication near the Kuiper belt. Possessing few clues about the aliens' culture or intentions, scientists dispatch an unlikely exploration team that includes a linguist with multiple-personality syndrome, a cyborg biologist, and a spectral captain whose genetic code incorporates vampirism. Watts packs in enough tantalizing ideas for a score of novels while spinning new twists on every cutting-edge genre motif from virtual reality to extraterrestrial biology. Watts' fifth, finest, most-fascinating book."

He has a knack for exploring the limitations of both science and human nature in entirely believable ways. More Battlestar Galactica than Star Trek, though truthfully it's likely to be much stranger than either.

If you're interested, leave a comment.

Posted by Andrea at March 17, 2008 9:39 PM under Books

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