This is a great first-contact novel, probably my favorite example of this genre. The book concludes with some ideas about the nature of consciousness that I found to be legitimately frightening. I read the book years ago but it feels even more relevant now as we watch new forms of “intelligence” like ChatGPT beginning to emerge.

Exactly. Blindsight is a hard read, but it is as frightening as any horror story I have ever read. It absolutely deserves a place in the list of best alien stories.

Every time I use ChatGPT, I think about Blindsight's premise of intelligence without consciousness. Interacting with the AI feels so much like the alien interactions in that book, it is scary.

At least none of the LLMs I've worked with have decided to refer to themselves as Rorschach.

Yet.

Yes! The aliens, non-humans and neuro-diverse humans were set off against each other brilliantly.

I'd also add "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky for aliens who are still alien but also manage to be people.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-tim...

Just finishing Children of Memory. They were ok, not on the level of Blindsight IMO. Also reminds me of Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge, which was also superior IMO.

I don’t know dude. It was so difficult to read. The way the aliens were presented was very original, but the storytelling kind of put me down. All the characters seemed flat, the environment was hard to conceptualize, a lot of made up words. And what was this thing with vampires? Who needs vampires in a sf book?

> Who needs vampires in a sf book?

They're SF vampires -- efficient, neurodiverse predators -- not undead/magic vampires.

They were reborn from traces in human DNAs and tamed with a drug they need to survive in our environment. They are very fast and very smart, that's why they are kept around.

I thought it was was an interesting take on making vampires work as having existed in the past. Especially clever why they don't like crosses.

What did you think about echopraxia?

Have not read it yet, need to.

There is also Portia, the possibly more alien life form in Echopraxia, the sequel to Blindsight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echopraxia_(novel)