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Notes -
The hyper-intelligence didn't really convince me, not as Watts tried to sell it. Sharks don't need to be hyper-intelligent, and neither do the vampires. They're apex predators. They were able to kill their way to dominance over the humans until humans figured out survival strategies. But Watts is the author, and what happens in a book is what the author wants to happen, and since Watts is all in on "humans are dumb and smelly and should all die, horribly if possible, and my wonderful no-consciousness hyper-intelligent murderbots will do that and take over from them, stupid dumb humans ha ha", then that is what we get.
"Imagining what another vampire would do" requires some degree of consciousness, I would argue. But Watts wants to eat his cake and have it, both. If I am imagining what another vampire would do, I first have to imagine that the other vampire also wants to rebel and escape. Maybe not all vampires want that? Okay, they hate humans and are murderbots, let's grant they all want to escape. After that, though: I instinctively know that my vampire-others will all be in places where they can do things in unison so the plan will come off with perfect timing. Well, that's convenient: no single one of the vampires is going to be held up in traffic, as it were? Nice things happen when the universe decides to drop the plot keys into your lap!
EDIT: I forget, how do vampires reproduce, if they can't be in proximity without ripping each other to shreds? Watts must have found some way around it, but I can't remember and can't be bothered to look it up. Hyper-intelligent murder machines that die out in one generation because they can't have offspring because they murder one another if close enough to mate aren't going far.
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