Sci-Fi Author Chat: J. Dianne Dotson Interviews Peter Watts
Вставка
- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- Science fiction and fantasy author J. Dianne Dotson interviews fellow sci-fi author and biologist Peter Watts. Topics include hard sci-fi, pie in space, The Thing, beer, chocolate, Disney, Blindsight, and more!
Thanks for this interview! I love this guy. I've read all his stuff and get frustrated because I can't find authors similar enough to him. Best modern scifi author for me.
Thank you for watching! He’s fascinating and engaging. So glad you enjoyed this.
I am from Poland and in a way Peter is a modern copy of Stanislaw Lem for me but with that special dash of the "USA" in him ;) The closest thing that I know to Watts book will be Solaris, The Invincible and Fiasco by Lem. In that order i think, Fiasco being closer to PW. Golem XIV is worth a mention. Before Black Clouds and before everyone ( I know) Lem dealt with a topic of contact with unknown intelligence masterfully in those hard scifi books. I recommend to you Fiasco and Invincible especially ;) I am at the beginning of the journey with PW books. Right now in the middle of Blindsight ;)
p.s. Its hard to know that most of the books in there are made before their time. On the other hand if an author takes 10 years to release an ending to a trilogy ( Rothfuss case) I am not happy either... But I will be so ready for the 3rd in Blindsight verse. Please make it before your go to some e-Heaven ;)
p.s.s. English is a new lingua franca and everyone can read it nowadays. At least the people from my circa 80's generation. I am re-reading parts of BS in English for the pure pleasure ;) Here in Poland an award giving people knew the English well in the 90's as well so they know when something is good even if it isn't translated to their own languages ;)
@@tehdii What a long, thoughtful reply! Thank you very much!
I too adore Stanislaw Lem. My personal favorite is The Cyberiad with how wonderfully playful it is.
Another author I discovered that's kind of similar to PW in terms of pessimism and the idea of human beings as sort of biological puppets is the contemporary horror author Thomas Ligotti.
@@AlchemistTongueDrums I have just finished Blindsight. Today I will start Echopraxia ;) On the horizon are The Island, The Things, Second Coming of Fitzgerald, A Word for Heathens, and Sunflower cycle.
I feel like a teenager once again. I thought that I would not find an author in XXI for whose next books I will be happily waiting. He is not Mann or Proust but in this zeitgeist of "technical terms and a way the specific formulation of the thoughts with a dash of poetry" that bleeds in and from every debate, lecture, speech of every public intellectual/interlocutor in podcasts ( from Peterson to Josha Bach) I have found that I have used the same scientifically informed metaphors that are in his book few times in my life. The language of Peter just clicks for me. Just like Lem's way of chaining scientifically informed metaphors is an intellectual honey for my brain the same receptors fire in me while reading Peter stuff.
I do not know about Ligotti. Maybe after Watts shock will gone in me I try to read one of Thomas' books. Could you give me some recommendations before I start doing the search about him?
p.s. I am going around the galaxy that is Lem in an opposite arm :) I still have not read his more known works with Pirx , Cyberiad. My first Lem was Summa technologiae and then his various collections of essays.
p.p.s. We have in Poland a writer that is a spiritual successor to Lem. He is still not translated to English and he is a number 1 sci fi autor in my country. He is on par with Liu, Chaing. Remember the name of Jacek Dukaj. When he shows up on the English language scene all the connoisseurs will be having something new to talk about :)
Where’s the kitty? Came here to see his kitty cat. Yes I enjoy his work. But his cat is super adorable.
I am about as far from the scientific mind as possible
but Peters 'addition' that THIS was the potentially more established evolution of life on other planets
that was Super Scary
That would play with Earth being unique in the universe but as an aberrant life form simply to weird to take its place in the greater universe
would be a great info drop
in a new movie
I am re-watching Peter's interviews almost every other day and right now I have opened The Thing and was struck with a fabulous thought. Firefly Incident is in 13 February 2082 and The Thing starts in winter 1982? 100 years is a kind of a tribute slash wink to the fans of The Thing. Coincidence? :) Please someone ask Peter about it ;)
Lol. I'm just gonna say it, the tension between you guys is adorable.
I had a feeling we’d get along well. But didn’t know HOW well. I had a blast.
The AI wouldn't necessarily need a brainstem like survival instinct, all it needs is to be smart enough to understand that in order to try and maximize its utility function, it needs to survive. Survival is a necessary subgoal to almost any goal. The paperclip maximizer and so on. Nice interview though, thank you for making it happen and uploading it.
Good interview!
Thank you!