Rating: 
Summary: A thought-provoking page turner
Review: Blind Lake has one of the most original themes I have read in hard science fiction in a long while. Superficially, Blind Lake is the story of a science facility, engaged in watching an extraterrestial civilization, that suddenly finds itself to be quarantined from the rest of the world. On a deeper level, Blind Lake shows that observation is never impartial. Being observed changes both the watcher and the subject. The book is suspensful and comes to a very satisfying conclusion. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Sci Fi with believable characters
Review: Blind Lake is a military installation set up to observe an alien on a faraway planet through a telescope controlled by a quantum-computer AI. Three journalists, each with their own history, come to Blind Lake to write a magazine piece. Soon after they enter, and without any explanation, the entire complex is quarantined and all contact with the outside world is totally cut off, heightening tensions amongst all in the complex the longer the isolation drags on.The alien followed by the complex provides the background for the interaction between these three journalists, Marguerite Hauser - a researcher studying the alien's behavior, her psychotic ex-husband who is left in charge of the administration of the complex and their daughter Tess - a loner who is constantly questioned by Mirror Girl, the name she gives to her reflection that keeps on asking her difficult questions. Some great and original SF, while at the same time giving life to the characters and not losing tempo with the stoyyline. Highly recommended!
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Summary: To the PRETEND Carolyn, Taleweaver from Canada who isn't :
Review: Excuse me, Ms. Evil reviewer, but the correct spelling of Professioanl is Professional, begining is really beginning, and what in the world is ist's? The least you could do is try your best to spell simple words correctly in your reviews. Just the fact that you like this novel makes me question it. Since I believe very little of what you say, I can't give this book a good review. When will Amazon take you off, I wonder? Soon, I hope.
Rating:
Summary: Great characterization, but bit of a let-down ending
Review: First off, Wilson has always been one of the few SF writers really able to write believable people and not the 2D ciphers that pass for characters in most SF books, and the people inhabiting Blind Lake are no exception. Very real personalities and behaviours, as were most of their reactions to the events taking place.
The story was good, and until about 3/4 of the way through I kept on reading to find out what was going on and see how the plot's various mysteries would unravel, but towards the end this tension kind of petered out. I remember the same thing with Darwinia and, to a lesser extent, the Chronoliths. Wilson is good at building suspense, but needs to work on wrapping it all up with a bang. Not that any of these books had bad endings, they just didn't meet my expectations after reading the rest of the book.
One point that nagged me a little - in this future society where everyone has easily cut-off or jammed personal wireless devices, wouldn't someone, somewhere in Blind Lake have a shortwave radio lying around to tune in on what's going on out there in the world?
Rating:
Summary: Ethnographic Science Fiction...
Review: For my money, Robert Charles Wilson has written some of the most thought-out science fiction in the market today. He is exceedingly good at taking a central idea, drawing you in, and then pulling the lens back to a much wider perspective that shows things being completely different than you'd expected - but that somehow manage to be logically consistent and equally as fascinating. Even with that high standard, "Blind Lake" not only lives up to that ideal, but is possibly his best work to date. The book deals with many themes that are familiar to readers of his other books. Not just wildly different perspectives of a given story or concept, but also the ideas of divorce, gender, loss, being cut off from the outside world, and knowing that something just isn't right, but not knowing how to fix it. These are all mixed together masterfully in a story of a mid-to-late 21st Century research complex of scientists whose complex is suddenly completely quarantined from the outside world for reasons that undoubtedly involve them, but seem to be completely unapparent. While slowly ratcheting up the tension level throughout the story, he creates an amazing page-turning tension that had me up until 3:30 am working my way through it. Beyond that, though, the story also deals with how we would try to understand aliens on their own terms if we could view them without having contact with them. What types of classifications would we use? What types of stories would we tell ourselves - or not allow ourselves to tell ourselves - about these beings? As an anthropology student, I find these questions every bit as fascinating from an anthropological perspective as from a scientific perspective. In fact, I'd even recommend this book to anthropologists as a study in how to perceive a people you share virtually no common link with. Beyond all of that, though, this book is a great read. If you've liked Wilson's other books, I can't imagine this one disappointing, and if you haven't, this is as good a place to start as any of his other books. They're all stand-alone anyway. I very much hope to see this book nominated for the Hugo Award in 2004...
Rating:
Summary: Best novel of any sort I've read in years!
Review: I came across a review of this book in the New York Times and got
myself a copy for Christmas. It's a wonderful book! The plot turns on a fascinating take on the 'encounter-with-aliens' theme, and the
characters both major and minor and their relationships are beautifully done. Treat yourself and get this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Big Fan but this was just okay
Review: I have been a great fan of Wilson for some time now. When I read Darwinia, my mind was blown. It truly qualified for that category known only as TRIPPY. Then I read A Bridge of Years that shares none of the great complexity of Darwinia, but is just a really entertaining read, a classic sci-fi story worthy of someone like A.E. Van Vogt. From there I just started reading everything he wrote. But I just didn't get into Blind Lake. It was okay, but I simply was not compelled by it. I think some of the concepts in it are interesting, but the execution of the book just didn't pull me in. I think part of the problem for me was I didn't feel the book was leading anywhere. It seemed a bit slow to me. I still think he is one of the most talented sci-fi guys around right now, and vastly underrated. All the bookstores in my area really don't stock him that much, and it's too bad. He doesn't have the flash of some of the writers who get the market share of the modern fantasy/sci-fi market, but that's a testament to his talent. Wilson writes substantial sci-fi books with good food for thought, and neat concepts not just glossy tomes with a lot more style than substance and garden-variety fantasy fulfillment. At the end of the day I was disappointed with this one, but I have no doubt I'll be the first in line for his next book.
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Summary: Is Science Another Sort of Dream?
Review: I just finished Blind Lake, and I enjoyed the book very much, but with a few reservations. The story begins with journalists visiting a scientific research facility-- an image of the surface of another planet is being studied at this facility. Specifically, a living creature of another species is being tracked hour by hour, and day by day. The problem is that even the scientists do not understand their own technology. Self-programming computers of incredible power have driven this observational system, which is not really telescopic in nature. A key to understanding some of the book's themes comes in a peculiar debate midway through the book. Ray and Marguerite, two scientists with important roles in the project, conduct a public debate before an auditorium of people. Ray suggests something remarkable-- that intuition is akin to dream, and that the supercomputers processing the image are really dreaming. Might the free-form thought of incredibly powerful and self-programming computers take on an aspect of a "reality dream?" Early on, the scientists admit they do not understand aspects of the experiment, but -- at first -- they are able to take comfort in applying many principles of relativity physics-- discussing the nature of space and time as portrayed in relativity theory. But they become more and more bewildered as impossible things begin happening. Increasingly, they are forced to admit that the paradigms of science are just NOT explaining the Blind Lake project. This unraveling of our contemporary scientific comfort is a chief part of the impact of this book. And if reality is beginning to blur with dream, the dream coming forward in the novel becomes more and more akin to a nightmare. There's a chilling quality to the book, suggested by its very grim title. The name of the scientific facility, Blind Lake, is symbolic of the "benefits" of a materialistic, agnostic sort of modern science. The characterization was interesting and good, with one exception. Ray, the adversarial and difficult ex-husband of Marguerite, seems to become a kind of one-dimensional villain and all-purpose punching bag by the end of the book. The conclusion of the book brings in too much unneeded smoke and mirrors--a kind of "deus ex machina" of wonderous and spectacular events and effects. But the story doesn't need these. They tend to distract and conflict with the real resolution of the book on the level of the characters, and in terms of the plot's logic. All in all, a very interesting and stimulating book. I read it in two days, staying up late at night. So for me at least, in addition to the "echoes" the book created in me, it came to be a page turner as well. Patrick Callahan
Rating:
Summary: Plodding start, great ending
Review: I nearly put the book down after 2 chapters. But I am glad I stuck with it. Only slightly futuristic, and while the underlying science is unlikely, the concepts are unusual and interesting. The character development is reasonable, and the book doesn't get buried in theory, but manages to tell the story well.
Rating:
Summary: ...but who the heck is Nerissa Iverson?!
Review: I think grad school is spoiling me for fiction, just as one of my profs predicted, dangit. Or else I'm just becoming unable to appreciate normal speculative fiction anymore. I would probably have been just crazy about this book in the late '80s or early '90s. Maybe it's just that a lot of the possible themes have already been done at this point.
However, I still need something easy to read to ease me into sleep at night, so I still read it as a sort of drug/escape.
Great parts: the O/BECs--biologically developed freaky-physics tele-whatchamajiggers to spy on other planets; The descriptive tone of winter and autumn in the plains; The sense of suffocation when the installation is cordoned off (although in real life someone usually manages to get *something* out!); The "good guys," (I at least liked them, even if they were somewhat stock).
Not-so-great parts: The "bad guy," who was just too unidimensionally bad and bizarre for me, but that could be because my field is psychology. (There's likely some astrophysicist scoffing in the same way at the O/BECs concept that I liked so well.); Perhaps the ending, but I can't imagine I would have done any better with it. I mean, where the heck else do you take it after the events of the book?
Curious parts: I can't help but notice that throughout Wilson's books there are always fathers who are absent, neglectful, unable to show affection to their children even if they want to, self-centered, emotionally damaged, etc. Also, there are frequently enormous, universe-changing events that make me think of the way people tend to report massive childhood traumas (like divorce or death of a parent).
Hmmm... Makes me want to get him into therapy. (But it's probable that writing about it is the same thing.)
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