Quite simply this is the best hard SF novel you've never heard of. Utterly unique and relentlessly intelligent, Watts takes the first contact trope and creates a scenario and alien intelligence unlike anything I'd ever read, heard or conceived of. After finishing this you'll have unending questions about what consciousness is and what true intelligence may consider divine. It will do things to your head that will last forever.

The small caveat to this review is that I've only read Blindsight, the first novel in this omnibus edition. Blindsight is one of the most impressive science-fiction novels I've read in recent years. The story concerns a crew of astronauts captained by a vampire as they make first contact with an alien ship. If that sounds absurd, just you wait; Watts's in-world justification for Vampire Astronauts is a masterstroke of imagination. If you've had your share of extra-terrestrials that are simply human cultures with the serial numbers filed off, Blindsight will delight you. Watts's background in marine biology shines through in a depiction of alien life that is both richly imagined and deeply unsettling. Both a compelling sci-fi mystery and a thoughtful meditation on the nature of intelligence, Blindsight is well worth your time. Just buy it!

I don't usually like hard sci-fi, and this feels about as hard as it gets. But Watts has created such a fascinating world, and ekes it out to you as you need it, always keeping you interested, and avoiding an exposition dump. The addition of some more fantastical elements - vampires, religion - is such an interesting choice, but they are treated with the same hard reality as the space ships and augmented humans. I thoroughly recommend this!

This is a bumper edition featuring two of Watts’ novels, Blindsight and its “sidequel”, Echopraxia. Two for the price of one; never to be sneered at. So: Firefall deals with the fallout from a sudden, stunning event in which the Earth is made aware of life - some sort of life - out there in the galaxy. In book one, a ship is dispatched - Theseus - to investigate, and possibly initiate first contact. In book two, a second ship - The Crown of Thorns - sets off on its own, related but separate mission. There are augmented humans, vampires, inexplicable phenomena, hive minds, debates about god, zombies, plagues - absolutely tons of ideas fizz around in this narrative, all at a hundred miles an hour. These are complicated, challenging books - you might do well to take a break between each one, and read something else. In a rush to find out more, I dived on - and be warned, answers are not always forthcoming. But I was gripped by this story, and even if I couldn’t quite sum up its plot adequately, I’m still buzzing over it, and chewing over the questions that it prompts.