Thank you for posting that. Odd how it's so much different that most of Watts' writing. Normally I consider Watts to be in my category of "authors whose ideas are irresistible but whose writing style is tortuous" thanks to him fitting five or six metaphors and similes into every single paragraph, but that was an excellent read. I wonder if he intended it for a different audience than his usual. I wish I could get Blindsight and Echopraxia rewritten in that style.
To each their own. I always enjoyed the metaphors and ambiguity, even if it meant I have to re-read a page after going "wait, WTF just happened". Reminds me of poetry analysis or classic literature class. Understandingly frustrating if you just want to charge through and find out what happens.
Gene Wolfe is also a master of this style, although he employs less metaphor, more ambiguity, and unreliable narrators.
I totally agree. I like reading Watts's work in the rare cases when I don't like his science.
> Understandingly frustrating if you just want to charge through and find out what happens.
"the device of art is that of ‘making things strange’ and of making form difficult, increasing the difficulty and time taken to perceive, since the process of perception in art is an aim in itself and must be prolonged" (Viktor Shklovskii, 1914)
I'm glad I am not the only one who finds his writing challenging. I had to give up on Blindsight after only a few pages as I had no idea what was going on.
Which is sad because it really is an excellent plot, but ye gods is it a miserable read. There seems to be a correlation with how good an author is at world-building and plot-weaving and how much actually reading the work is a chore. Watts isn't the only one either. Peter F Hamilton's worlds are utterly enchanting but will make you want to hit him with his own books.
Interesting, I haven't noticed writing style being especially challenging. Mostly because I'm not a native english speaker and read a lot of fantasy/sci-fi/etc books in english. They _all_ start off like "and then gromulars grokled grampors and fiddled fibbles flamboyantly" for several chapters. Then two things start to happen at the same time -- 1: author gets tired of introducing new things in fancy ways and goes on with the plot, and 2: reader slowly gets used to terms and concepts that are relevant enough to be used in the rest of the book.
After ploughing through a few of Hamilton’s books I came to the conclusion that three out of every five words could be deleted without any damage to the plot whatsoever.
He’s got some good stories, but I gave up after realising that I really didn’t need to know what every character, no matter how minor, had for breakfast.
He also has the unspeakably irritating habit of starting every chapter with an in medias res moment for some bystander that isn't part of the plot. It's only after two pages of Fuckface McGee's afternoon stop at the tea shop do the significant characters walk through the door. Even that would be a minor issue, except he also changes which character is the narrative focus every chapter and you don't find out which one until they enter the scene. Every single chapter starts out with ten minutes of the reader not even knowing what planet the events are happening on and it's very frustrating. I tried the audio version but went back to the books because he uses John Lee for all his narration and I can't stand Lee's weird faux-Scottish accent that wobbles all over the place.
I found blindsight pretty easy as an audiobook when driving rom SF to seattle. Maybe being slightly inattentive benefitted me for that style of writing, but I didn't notice the metaphor heavy style.
Blindsight's not too bad, but Echopraxia really piles it on. For example, it takes nearly a full page to describe uneventfully passing through an entryway and it gets two similes and two metaphors.
What a coincidence that this pops up on HN as I’m halfway thru Blindsight. It’s somewhat of a relief to hear others find his writing style frustrating… I was starting to think I was just dumber than his normal audience
yeah, i guess a lot of it is a matter of taste. i find hobb's style very engaging and readable, and there are other popular writers like c j cherryh and david drake whose style i have a hard time getting into. (not read watts; from what i've heard of him i suspect his sf will have too many horrific elements for me.)
