Echopraxia
Ratings71
Average rating3.7
this was rough, hard to read. So slow and oftentimes critical plot points are mentioned in passing. Every sentence, including the most mundane, might suggest a huge change in the story. You just have to pick up on it. Not my style.
After finishing Blindsight, I didn't think I'd go forward with reading the “sequel” until i discovered I had already bought the audiobook version. Why not go ahead and get this one done while I still remembered some of Blindsight.
This book is very similar in a number of ways. Very similar prose (not a strength, in my opinion, but it may be intentionally written to be confusing to us “normies.”) Actually occurs in a concurrent timeframe to Blindsight. Similar themes. And also carries a cast of characters with serious mental issues that the author attempts to portray as strengths.
While I don't find myself agreeing with many of the ideology that is clearly forwarded by the author, it still made for an interesting read. For some reason, I actually enjoyed this one more than the first. It may be that the main character being essentially a “normie” makes him more identifiable as a protagonist. Thrown into a situation more or less against his will. Those are things we can understand and enjoy. I will say that the “universe” that Watts creates is very interesting and well done - worth exploring. The situations are a bit bizarre, but most of the characters' actions make sense in light of their circumstances. This is one area that Blindsight suffered (again, that may have been intentional from the author).
Overall, I'd give this one 3.5 stars. It does make me wonder if there were a 3rd novel in the universe, would I pick it up? Maybe.
Book 2 of the Firefall duo. It continued the wild ride of Blindshight with another weird bunch of characters, but a different spaceship on a different journey.
This time the ship is heading to a facility close to the sun. Among the different cast of characters we slowly find out how they are linked to the crew of the first book, and how the aliens of Bk 1 have somehow migrated to story 2. And it's not all good. In the first book Watts was exploring concepts of intelligence vs self awareness. In the second book he explores issues of free will vs whatever the alternatives are. His background is as a marine research biologist and this book closes with several essays on the scientific analysis of his weird characters and story elements, citing several hundred academic journals and articles in the process. So just as my mind was reeling from the close of the story itself I found myself in an academic treatise whirlwind where he seems to say, "See, I told you it was possible."
And on a completely different note. He minimally mentions the time when he flushed his mouth with a cocktail of marine animal and plant DNA just before a swab being taken by some American govt. agency. Now that's a story I want to know more about. :)
While it didn't quite hold up to the level of awe I felt for weeks after reading Blindsight, Echopraxia does have its share of cool ideas about the universe. I think it was worth the read, even though it also falls into the Wattsian pattern of having not much happen until a good 60-80% of the way through.
When really hard Sci-Fi concepts get more attention than the actual plot, we get books like Echopraxia. It started out really good. The first half of the book was really interesting to read. But it went kind of downhill after that. Sometimes I find Peter Watt's writing style very frustrating at some places. His writing is very difficult to visualise. It was justified for the first book in the Firefall series - Blindsight, due to the protagonist's mental condition. But echopraxia succumbs to the same trope even though the protagonist is just a normal ”baseline” human. When every sentence is filled with poetic description and technical jargon with no explanation; it becomes really easy to lose focus. No matter how novel the concept is; if the storytelling has suffered severe portrayal issue, it hampers the enjoyment of the actual content.
3/5 stars.
I loved Blindsight so much I think of it as a top 3 scifi favorite ever for me and even wrote the author to say how much I loved it (he answered, is a great guy and with a great sense of humor, so military I am surprised he is not one of us, the military). I compared it in its review somewhat to Reynolds, but said Watts was better by being focused.
Well, in this one he goes full Reynolds,meaning a lot of extremely imaginative hard sf background, carried forward by a creaking, overburdened narrative chassis. It starts great and then just stalls for half the book. When it picks up again, I was already bored and not invested in the story any more.
So. Probably a 5/5 for hard scifi fans, and for engineers. More of a 3/5 for those looking for a more intense and mission-focused story, like myself.
PS. It is not Blindsight 2. It happens in parallel. Good to know, because to many that came as a disappointing surprise.
Some truly provocative ideas about consciousness, identity and the future. The execution however was lacking and could not possibly compare to the intellectual masterpiece that was [b: Blindsight 48484 Blindsight (Firefall, #1) Peter Watts https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386924412s/48484.jpg 47428] . At times it felt like I was reading a work of fan fiction of the first book, however it was still worth it.Now I'm off to drown my existential dread with alcohol.
Grosse déception avec ce roman qui complète “Blindsight” que j'ai lu juste avant. Le problème, c'est que ce roman possède les inconvénients de Blindsight (les longueurs, les digressions pas toujours intéressantes) sans en avoir les qualités. Le récit m'a ennuyé comme rarement un roman le fait, les personnages m'ont laissé indifférent, et je n'étais même pas impatient de découvrir la fin. Quelle déception.
In a lot of ways, Echopraxia feels like a very classic sci-fi novel, favouring intellectualism and thought experiments over character and plot. While this style will no doubt have its fans, overall it leaves it as an unsatisfying reading experience. Watts remains an incredibly talented writer but this was far from his best work.
More thoughts at https://northerntomorrows.wordpress.com/2015/09/20/echopraxia-by-peter-watts/
I think I'm going to have to read this one again to get the most out of it, just like its predecessor, Blindsight. Definitely worth a read if you're interested in philosophy of mind or neurobiology (and you enjoy your science sometimes turned into fiction).
Two comments, from the first read:
1. Like some other books I love, I wish the author would actually tease out fewer concepts in more depth. This thing has vampires and zombies, god-as-a-virus, mind-control from light-years away, various kinds of hacked brains/consciousness(es), and more–any of which could have been the kernel of a great book.
2. I hope Watts has read Daniel Dennett's “Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting”, because it contains myriad answers to some of the questions he raises regarding free will (especially those in the back matter).