Lunchtime reading

[ksmith]

"Kings and corporations scribbled IOUs on the backs of napkins and promised to sort everything out once the heat was off."

Back to reading BLINDSIGHT by Peter Watts--it's lunch break, ok?--and enjoying the hell out of it. Tracking the POV changes, or the changes that turn out not to be, is proving a bit of a challenge, but I still like it a lot and frankly, I usually don't go in for harder SF.

Funny how you can come to care for characters. Putting someone in a vulnerable position doesn't always do it--I've read crying and wailing and death in the wings and set the book aside after a few chapters. Niceness is not, Not, NOT a prerequisite. Don't need to want to have a beer with them. Need to want to *read* about them. Two completely different things.

Maybe it's the internal tension, and the hint of frustration. Resignation. Anger. It's inexplicable as any other sort of attraction, when you come right down to it, and why shouldn't it be.

Must go read now...

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Can I ask you to try and pin down (if possible) what you're digging about Blindsight? This'll probably be a post once I start posting again. I'm at the end of the Theseus section and still mostly indifferent, and so trying to figure out a) whether to continue on and b) where all those smart people who love it are coming from.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Pondering question now for response later--must get back to work...

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

OK. I'm still in the Theseus section as well. For all I know, the book may fall apart in the end, but here's what I like about it so far:

I love the brain/neuro stuff. I researched and used some things in the Jani books, but not to anything approaching this extent.

I'm enjoying what I would call the overall voice, or tone. Fatalistic flippancy? The humanizing of the machines.

I'm enjoying Watts' take on vampires.

I like Siri.

Did I mention vampires?

The little touches. Sirasti clicks his teeth, and Sascha, who'd been arguing, falls silent.

Maybe I'll be able to explain more at the end. It's just that a whole lot of little things are adding up. I've read a *lot* of books in the past year where they didn't.

[planetalyx.livejournal.com]

Watts' work is so dark, but I still find it immensely appealing. His characters are twisted in really intriguing ways, and he's such a plausibility freak. The work he does on selling the vampire in BLINDSIGHT is mind-bending.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

His descriptions are so spare, but he gives you just enough.

Like I said, it could fall apart at the end, but so far, I'm liking it.

[planetalyx.livejournal.com]

I'll be interested in hearing what you think of it when you're finished.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

I find your "I don't go in for harder SF" remark a bit confusing. I thought "Contact Imminent" (the only book of yours that I've read) WAS hard SF.

So, where would you put your books on the hard-to-soft continuum?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I thought "Contact Imminent" (the only book of yours that I've read) WAS hard SF.

Thanks for that. I try to make the tech plausible, and I still get emails from readers with links to this or that neuro or e-paper article that discusses developments similar to those in the books. If I erred in that regard, it's in timing. The Jani books take place in some vague "couple hundred years in the future" setting, and some of the things I wrote about are likely only 5-10 years down the road, if that.

So, where would you put your books on the hard-to-soft continuum?

Middlin'. Most of my plot arc hinges on the ability of an alien race to hybridize with humans with comparatively little genetic tweaking, and that would cause some hardcore readers to kick it to the 'science fantasy' curb right off the bat. I know that I have Jani go through some physical difficulties, especially in CODE and RULES, and I don't have any hybrid babies popping up along the way, but it's still a biological stretch that some readers wouldn't buy.

I therefore tried to make the smaller scale stuff--the augmentation issues, the scanpack/paper stuff--a little more grounded. But my weapons and vehicles are pretty much powered by handwavium, and my spacecraft are designed to get folks from here to there within a timeframe that complicates the plot without blowing it out of the water.

That being said, the definition of "hard SF" is one that has kept rec.arts.sf.written hopping on occasion. Like Art, it's in the eye of the beholder.