If you like Blindsight, you’ll probably want to continue with the sidequel, Echopraxia. You can also find them bundled together under the name Firefall.
And I think out of his main works, Blindsight is probably the most accessible. It also led me to Thomas Metzinger’s “The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self” [2], which Watts used as a source material in his research and had good things to say about.
The Rifters series is great, too, but there’s a sort of darkness or heaviness to it that may not work for everyone.
And bonus content, a fan made short movie based on Blindsight, here: [3].
I hope this helps. :)
Links:
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)
[1]: https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
For quick recommendations, I'd single out two of his short stories (which are two of my favorite stories in general):
The 21 Second God - https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=5968 Malak - https://rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_Malak.pdf
Edit: I always forget HN doesn't use markdown.
Books can do that. Like, read Tom Robbins and you'll fall in love with the next person you see. Read Peter Watts and you'll spend the next four years looking at the person next to you like they're an alien who's plotting to lay eggs in you without themselves even knowing it.
I do need to reread Echopraxia though, and perhaps my opinion will change after that. Blindsight was brilliant enough that it deserves the extra effort to appreciate.
I think I was always part of this category of people without even realizing, until I read Peter Watts’ books, and in particular Blindsight.
I read hard SF, and I enjoy the genre greatly. But most of it just lacks something that is hard to pinpoint. It’s both something about human psychology, and where the case, especially about the aliens. Not Blindsight, tho. Not at all.
Btw, there’s another hard SF author that I have a huge appreciation for: Ken MacLeod. His style is different, but in my opinion he gets things right too. Some of his books I read multiple times too, and I really don’t do that often, having limited time for reading and being rather picky about what I read.
Can absolutely see someone being part of that group before reading/realizing though, Watts/Blindsight is so different but almost “natural”. I used to think it was its unrelenting emphasis on competition, but there’s absolutely more to it as you say in its treatment of psychology, consciousness, alien/different life
I’ve never read Ken Macleod but I’m happy to look into him now, can’t remember ever being disappointed in recommendations given off the back of Blindsight!
Not sure that I like Blindsight even though I think it a great book. The same goes for some of his other books; deeply unsettling
It's not for everyone though, I tried to get friends and family to read it, I don't think a single one got through it.
You pretty much need Wikipedia open to make sense of it and meditate on chapters. It's a challenging read.
Blindsight worth reading indeed, depiction of scary aliens is excellent there, Echopraxia is completely disappointing disaster movie in the print form. I'm going to point you at The Island novelette and whole Sunflowers series if you can endure its decadent dark set&setting.