Currently reading
McGlue
Knife Fight and Other Struggles
Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
The Good Lord Bird
Ancillary Justice
Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More (New Edition)
Dissident Gardens
Nightmare Movies: Horror on Screen Since the 1960s
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
Complete Novels
Watts writes stuff steeped in hard- and plain-whacked- science. At times he's channeling journal articles as well as Alfred Bester--it caroms from pulp to cog-psych theory and can jar. (He also writes like he found Camus too sunny, and sought here to make amends.)But a blast. Works as a revamped (ahem) version of the first-contact story. Aliens intrude at the edges of space, and a misfit team sent to greet them. Communication confounded, conflict inside the human craft, and trouble abounds.
Watts unravels our dreams about aliens, as a pointed provocation to get us to re-examine the alienness of our selves. He made me think about thinking, while simultaneously pleasing the kid-in-me wanting to read more about scary freaky monsters. As good as Bester, better than most working today.