Aliens, Art and Fan Appreciation

          Yesterday morning I awoke to two things. The first such thing being my newly adopted Chihuahua wiggling across my bed for her much needed morning affection. The second was a comment on a work I posted on my Deviant Art profile, “Alienietzsche,” from another profile by the name of “Squidnapper.” As I read the comment I realized that it was from none other than the author whose work inspired the drawing to begin with. Peter Watts, author of Blindsight, my favorite science fiction book and one of the best books in the genre, had not only discovered my amateur work online but actually appreciated it enough to request that it be added to his website. I was shocked and elated. I am a huge nerd but I keep it to myself mostly. I have never attended Blizz-Con, Comic-Con or E3, although I plan on going to at least one of them one of these days. I don’t attend book signings or readings or comment on author answer-and-question threads on Reddit. I'm too lazy, too shy and too unfocused. The extent of my introverted fandom is my few attempts at fan art on my Deviant Art page. I’ve never sought the attention of someone whose work I appreciate, however immensely. So to discover that one such someone had stumbled across my humble tribute and had given me small praise was nothing short of awesome. Today my drawing appeared in his post “A Young Squid’s Illustrated Primer” under “part the Second: Scramblers.” He had the following to say: "Last week’s ego-surf turned up this great little illustration from Deviant Artist “Alienietzsche“— whose vision of Blindsight‘s scramblers is perhaps the closest I’ve seen to the images that were floating around in my own head while I was writing about those crawly little guys. This is going straight into the Gallery, with thanks and with ol ‘Nietzsche’s blessing." 

          

          Peter Watts is a “hard” science fiction writer which is the primary reason that I really enjoy his work, especially Blindsight and its pseudo-sequel Echopraxia. The names of these two books are derived from scientific phenomenon, as is much of the Watts’ writing. Whereas other speculative fiction authors might provide an appendix for the sake of fleshing out their world-building, Watts provides an appendix to justify his speculation with actual scientific research and publications. Bonus points for promoting scientific literacy. Unlike many works of popular science fiction, Watts takes his science seriously (he is a marine biologist after all). He doesn’t treat it as a surface level aesthetic, merely importing the imagery of the genre, but puts in the effort to argue for its scientific legitimacy. Thanks to his prose, pained with cynical intellect, this degree of scientific accommodation never devolves into being a mere info-dump to the reader. And even though Watts tethers his writing to scientific research and review, it doesn’t appear to constrain the reach of his imagination. Forget del Toro’s The Strain or Cronin’s The Passage (but not really, they deserve to be read, especially the latter), Watts has created the most scientifically plausible and terrifying vampires in the genre. His short-story, "The Things" is a brilliant and disturbing re-imagining of John Carpenter's classic horror film The Thing from the perspective of the alien itself. I strongly recommend you check out his work and welcome you to check out my Deviant Art profile. I realize I haven't even discussed the titular aliens who inspired this series of events to begin with but I fear that any elaboration regarding them would compromise their alien uniqueness to the genre and the imagination.