I’ve got fairly mixed feelings about this one. Loved its predecessor, Blindsight. And I enjoyed seeing more of that world here, along with Siri Keaton’s father. (He is not the main character though.) For the most part I quite liked Echopraxia while I was reading it. Up until the ending. The ending was really pretty unsatisfactory.
On the other hand, after reading this possibly borderline spoilery review: http://lareviewofbooks.org/article/fe... and looking at the book from the perspective suggested there, as a kind of counterpoint to the rah-rah, singularity as nerd-rapture view of a “post-human” future that seem to be more common in SF, I have to say my appreciation for what Watts did here actually increased a bit.
But in the interest of being done with this pseudo-review, I’ll toss out some points I haven’t really integrated.
The Bad:
- Fairly unsatisfactory ending, though your mileage may vary.
- The plot is hidden from the main character to a degree that it actually makes the book feel kind of plotless and adrift. I spent a lot of the book unsure why the main character was even in the book, much less the main character.
- Occasional unclear writing. This is something which was a bit of a problem in Blindsight as well. I’ll be reading along and suddenly I have no idea what the main character is going on about. Watts changes topic without sufficiently a clear signal to the reader. This frequently takes a form something like this: An event or conversation takes place. The main character has an insight based on that event or conversation and proceeds to ruminate on it for a few paragraphs. Meanwhile the reader is not given the slightest clue what that insight actually was. It’s annoying as fuck.
The Good:
- Watts has envisioned a very interesting future world/society.
- Like Blindsight, the book is full of interesting ideas about intelligence and consciousness, some of which are speculative, but most all of which are based on legitimate science. It’s biology/neurology flavored hard SF, and it’s awesome.
- Watts' endnotes are almost as interesting as the novel itself.
If that last bit sounds interesting and you can cope with a less than optimistic ending, I’d recommend it. It mostly reads fairly well and easily maintained my interest even while occasionally frustrating me. English Ok, so it’s pretty clear that Peter Watts doesn’t think very highly of the human race. When I look around at the state of the world we’ve made I have to admit that I’m not sure I can blame him. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like he thinks much of the possible post-human solutions to the ‘problem’ either. Man, what’s a species to do?! Given the general tenor of Watts’ books I think the answer might be: just roll over and die…after sufficiently (and pointlessly) railing against the inevitable of course. Shit, I wonder what Watts is like at parties?
I was looking forward to reading this book given how much I enjoyed its prequel _Blindsight_, but I have to admit that I didn't grok this one nearly as much. I think the long lapse since reading _Blindsight_ didn't help. I'm pretty certain if I'd re-read it before tackling _Echopraxia_ I probably would have had an easier time of it. I was also a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of hard science that I must admit I didn't quite follow most of the time. Given this is a hard SF book I can't really hold that against it...it's my problem, but one that did deter from my enjoyment of the story to a certain extent.
We pick up several years after the events of _Blindsight_ with the human race assuming, as usual, that no news is good news as far as the mission to discover the origins of the mysterious aliens behind the 'Firefall event' goes and so we're back to our life as usual with internecine wars and the race to outdo each other in resource consumption taking up most of our time and effort. Daniel Bruks is a biologist living a solitary life in the desert cataloging mutated species and running from a traumatic event in his past. He is also a baseline human struggling to live in a post-human world. His life is about to change drastically through the intervention of a nearby 'monastic' community of Bicameral humans (basically a super-intelligent hive mind) and an escaped vampire (yes a vampire in a hard SF book...Watts has a very interesting version of these beasts who are actually a prehistoric human offshoot brought back by the wonders of science and stupidity of mankind).
In short order Bruks finds himself running from unknown enemies and participating in a voyage across the solar system to discover what mysteries and dangers lie in the ruins of the Theseus project as outlined in the first book. It's a Peter Watts book so I don't think I'm committing a heinous act of spoiler if I note that nothing goes well at all for anyone. Watts populates his mission to space with an array of modified post-humans and his view on how our race might evolve, and the technologies to which they are wedded, is always interesting. Of course we require a lens like Bruks through which to view these super beings who are beyond the ken of wormlike mortals such as ourselves.
All in all I generally enjoyed the story though Watts' baseline of utter pessimism and my aforementioned inability to always follow the technical nuances of the science being thrown around did hamper my enjoyment some. I also *think* I know what happened at the end of the story, but am a little uncertain about some aspects of it, though I guess having food for thought about the hows and whens is ok. I'll call this one a draw I guess...interesting stuff for sure, but not a book for which I am the ideal reader.
English This copy 40
This set of two books is limited to 300 signed and numbered copies. Each book has a ribbon marker and signature page signed by Peter Watts and artist Thomas Walker.
Published February 2020. English 5 Stars
Echopraxia by Peter Watts is a rare case where the sequel outdoes the beginnings. I loved Blidnsight, I would have never imagined a case where I thought that a sequel would make for a better and longer lasting read….Wow…here it is. Echopraxia takes the philosophical approach of blindsight one major step further. Watts coins this book himself as “a faith-based hard science fiction novel”, what an oxymoron…
“Finally: free will. Although free will (rather, its lack) is one of Echopraxia’s central themes (the neurological condition of echopraxia is to autonomy as blindsight is to consciousness).”
This book started off with what I was worried would end up being a major flaw in that we did not have anything invested in our protagonist Daniel, nor did we have any reason to care. It actually was not until the midway point that Bruks finally asserted himself and his personality as the star of our story. That being said, the hard science, the amazing near future world, the dark undertones, and the merits of its predecessor made it a no brainer that I would read it cover to cover no matter what….Thank god (no pun intended) that I did.
This is a book that is really a study in or more like a look around the corner at what is faith? what is God? What is free will? and even a bit more about the nature of consciousness. The novel is steeped in dialogue and situations that explore faith and God and the meaning of life.
Watts shows in this book just how far he has come as a gifted writer. In Blindsight he showed us glimpses of his writing style, command of the English language, and his ability to put his thoughts on paper. But now nearly a decade later he has honed his craft to an elite level. I put him right up their with the best writers out their. I was truly blown away by his writing.
Although this book is mostly about the dialogue, the situations, and settings, there still is a good deal of action that is very well done.
A snippet that shows his action writing style….
“In the lamprey now: No time to stop, no chance to bar the way, you even think about dogging that hatch and she’ll be on you before you even turn around. Don’t look back. Just keep running. Don’t think about where, don’t think about when: thirty seconds is a lifetime, two minutes is the far future, it’s the moment that matters, it’s now that’s trying to kill you. A voice ahead, as panicky as the one inside, echoing down the throat and getting louder: all shit shit shit and docking clamps and numbers going backward—but Don’t worry about that either, that’s for later, that’s for ten seconds from now if you’re still alive and—“
The ending of this book is simply spectacular. All of the end scenes culminate and bring this adventure to a conclusion by bringing to the forefront all of the themes which were explored throughout. There is no major plot twist per se, instead, the entire last portions of this story are more like an evolution, things that change with time, rather than a sudden major twist. It makes this book a real gem. I do not want to give away spoilers. It is simply masterful storytelling.
I will surely reread this amazing faith based hard science novel by one of my favorite authors.
One of my favorite reads of the year. English Echopraxia: Nowhere near as good as Blindsight
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
I was extremely impressed by Peter Watts’ Blindsight (2006), a diamond-hard sci-fi novel about first contact, AIs, evolutionary biology, genetically-engineered vampires, sentience vs intelligence, and virtual reality. It is an intense experience, relentless in its demands on the reader, but makes you think very hard about whether humanity’s sentience (as we understand it) is really as great as we generally think it is.
The short answer, according to Watts, is no. It’s an evolutionary fluke, was never necessary for survival, and will actually be a hindrance when we encounter more advanced alien species, most of which may have developed high levels of intelligence without wasting any precious brain capacity on sentience, self-awareness, or “navel-gazing.” It’s a very depressing idea, but he drives home his argument with such force that you at least have to acknowledge his points, even if you disagree with them.
So I was pretty excited to pick up Echopraxia (2014), thinking it would continue the story of Theseus crew member Siri Keaton. Despite the climatic events at the end of Blindsight, the story lacked resolution. It even hinted at events back on Earth that whetted my appetite for more.
Imagine my disappointment as I discovered that Echopraxia takes up a different but parallel storyline, so you will not learn anything about the aftermath of the previous story. I can understand that Watts wants to explore in more detail the future he’s created, but it seems willfully contrary to not reveal anything further. If he’s eventually planning a third volume that ties the two previous books together, I can understand it, but I found this very frustrating.
Halfway through the book, I feel as if nothing of interest had happened after the initial action set-piece when an army of zombie soldiers led by a vampire attack a desert religious enclave of ‘Bicamerals.’ Then without much warning, old-school ‘baseline’ biologist Daniel Bruks is whisked into space on the Crown of Thorns. The crew is a mix of modified humans who are vastly more advanced than him. Essentially, the plot grinds to a halt in space, and neither the characters nor the writing captured my interest the way Blindsight did.
I got through half the book, gave up and tried a second time to no avail. There are none of the mind-bending discussions of alien biology or consciousness that made Blindsight so good. It’s still very dense, scientific jargon-laden writing, but without the central First Contact plot driving events forward, it’s hard to digest. While I found Synthesist Siri Keaton so bizarre and disturbing in Blindsight, he had a human past that was slowly revealed in flashbacks. In contrast, I didn’t find anything of interest about Daniel Burks.
After deciding to give up on this one, I felt a flood of relief and excitement at the idea of starting a new book. I don’t like DNFs (Did Not Finish), but couldn’t see any benefit in slogging on further. If anything, I would much rather go back and listen to Blindsight again, which was an amazing book all the way through. English
Download Echopraxia (Firefall, #2)
3 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.com/2014/11/17/r...
I thought I would be going into Echopraxia with two strikes against me. First, the fact that I haven’t read Blindsight which is the first book in the Firefall series, and second, there was the worry that the book would be too “hard sci-fi” for my tastes. Fortunately, neither really ended up being an obstacle. Sure, I had my issues with this novel, but those have little to do with my original concerns.
It’s hard to explain a book like Echopraxia; this is one of those cases where it’s probably better to just let the publisher description do the talking: “The eve of the twenty-second century”, “a world where the dearly departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues”, “genetically engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans”, “soldiers come with zombie switches that shut off self-awareness during combat”.
It’s a whole other world, with a very different status quo. People like biologist Daniel Bruks who is adamant against upgrading himself with any implants or enhancements are seen as “old school”, living fossils that are still clinging on to an extinct way of life. While working in the field in the middle of the Oregon desert, he finds himself entangled in a conflict between a vampire and her entourage of zombie bodyguards versus a faction of technologically advanced Bicameral monks. Now he’s trapped on a ship headed to the center of the solar system to learn what happened to Blindsight, the expedition which took off years ago to investigate what appeared to be an alien signal.
The ideas here are wild, spectacular and ambitious. The plot, on the other hand, is quite thin – another reason why it would be difficult to describe this novel. Echopraxia is a book that feels less concerned with providing a cohesive narrative, instead focusing more heavily on philosophical discussion and debate on the human condition. Great if like these kinds of books, not so great if you don’t. Personally, I really enjoyed the first hundred pages or so because it contained most of the story. Watts established the setting, the main characters and the conflict. But everything started unraveling after that point, and became unfocused and disorganized.
The challenge for me was in trying to tease apart the jumble of ideas without allowing myself to be driven to distraction. Watts’ writing is laden with scientific jargon and not very easy on the eyes, making this one a slower read. Given the heavier themes and tinge of gloom, not to mention the fact there’s barely any plot, there’s just not too much energy to push it along. Not that I’m saying Echopraxia is a bad book. Far from it, in fact. I feel it has all the right ingredients, but the actual execution of all those great ideas leaves something to be desired.
Over the years, I think I’ve come to gain a deeper appreciation for hard sci-fi. It’s still a struggle sometimes, I admit, but it’s no longer the insurmountable hurdle it once was. However, plot and characters rank high on my priority list. Compelling and cogent storytelling is still somewhat of a requirement in the question of whether or not I’ll enjoy a book. Unfortunately, parts of Echopraxia are just too inconsistent for me to embrace it with open arms, but Watts should be recognized for his incredible talent of making everything he writes about sound fascinating and convincing. This is not a book you’ll want to pick up for a light afternoon of reading, but it’s worth it if you’re up for a thoughtful discourse on the complexities of the human mind and consciousness. English
“Life was a struggle to exist at the expense of other life.”A few weeks ago I read Blindsight and emerged from that reading session breathtakingly (even if slightly confusingly) fascinated and dazzled by the far-reaching hard SF and existential questions. (I also mostly managed to filter out the vampire character from my clearly suboptimal consciousness). And I felt strangely disturbing empathy for Siri Keeton- a weird and supposedly unlikable enhanced-human protagonist whose struggles hit a strange chord with me.
Echopraxia, however, required almost *physical* effort for me to get through. And no, it is not a bad book — but it certainly was not for me, failing to engage me the entire time. Maybe it’s because my puny “baseline”, “roach” consciousness impedes my intelligence — but my pesky consciousness was irritatingly annoyed by detached boredom.
Broken down to the bare bones, both Echopraxia and its sorta-predecessor Blindsight share a similar structure: an outsider boards a spaceship headed to a far-flung corner of the Solar System in search of something menacingly and bafflingly alien while in the company of baffling post-humans whose abilities are beyond understanding. And there’s a vampire on board each time — an apparently scientifically plausible vampire. And then there are mind-boggling existential questions that stretch my mental horizons quite a bit.
As Watts himself states in the “Notes” section at the end of the book - the part that I actually liked:————
“[…] the neurological condition of echopraxia is to autonomy as blindsight is to consciousness.”
But while Blindsight felt like challenging awesomeness, Echopraxia did not resonate with me at all.
First of all, our POV character, biologist Dan Brüks - a “baseline” (non-augmented) biologist that ends up first a bystander, then pretty much a ���pet” human, then something more menacing - to me was quite uninteresting. His ordinariness may have been intended to make him more relatable, I suppose, but in the end it’s working against the intentions. Brüks for the vast majority of the book is confused and overwhelmed, watching events unfold that are beyond his comprehension and therefore opaque and ten steps ahead of his best reasoning. A big deal is made of emphasizing how this is similar level of incomprehensibility that a capuchin monkey would feel in the presence of scientists — hive-mind post-human Bicamerals (sentient religious tumors, basically) and all-powerful and very territorial vampires - but his clueless efforts and failings to keep up and resulting condescension from everyone else were uninteresting to me. Siri Keeton of Blindsight, himself possessing a bit of post-humanity and struggling with humanity expectations was infinitely more interesting and relatable. I want to see interesting things happen in a comprehensible way, not just be a very confused fly on the wall or an equally confused roach on the floor, to keep up with the book’s chosen vocabulary. Almost any side character would have been more interesting — but it’s the Everyman Brüks we get.
“Truth had never been a priority. If believing a lie kept the genes proliferating, the system would believe that lie with all its heart.”
When the protagonist fails to engage me, I look to the ideas — because it’s perfectly fine for ideas or a setting to take center place over a so-so character (I mean, read any of Kim Stanley Robinson’s books to see that protagonists can be little else but a driving force for the ideas and setting). And it was yet another stumbling block. While Blindsight made my mind reel with the questions of consciousness versus intelligence, with a side dish of hard SF, biology, physics, astronomy, psychology, Echopraxia brought science versus faith into sharper focus — and I realized that I am much less interested in the implications of religiosity in space, as well as the idea of hive minds. But, to give credit where credit is due, I did briefly enjoy the “God as a virus” idea — because miracles are basically malfunctions in the governing laws of the universe, with the implications unexpectedly funny — and this passage:
“What—what is this mission, exactly?” Brüks asked softly.
“Mmmm.” Sengupta rocked gently back and forth. “They know God exists already that’s old. I think now they’re trying to figure what to do with It.”
“What to do with God.”
“Maybe worship. Maybe disinfect.”
The word hung there, reeking of blasphemy.
“How do you disinfect God?” Brüks said after a very long time.”
I think I just don’t care much for faith-based existentialism. These ideas will not keep me up at night, my mind reeling. But of course that’s just me — the ideas may get others’ metaphorical juices flowing just fine.
And the other ideas thrown in felt scattered, lacking that focus and cohesiveness that Blindsight had. Or else hive minds and such is just again failing to engage my very “baseline” brain. I can’t claim smarts like what Peter Watts has, so I gotta manage with what I have, and that may not be enough to appreciate the ideas tapestry - or quilt blanket, if you share my mind frame - here. The reliance on the inability of a “baseline” human understand the workings of post-human vastly superior intelligence makes a lot of events seem like convenient hand-waving of “we are just too dumb to get it, it’s pretty much godlike” nonsense that for me was frustrating as hell.
“Dan, you gotta let go of this whole self thing. Identity changes by the second, you turn into someone else every time a new thought rewires your brain.”
————
“A fifth of the world’s energy supply, in the hands of an intelligent slime mold from outer space.”
The inevitable alien encounter that was three quarters of the book in the making sparked my curiosity only when the analogy to the Portia spider made me excitedly remember Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time.
“It actually did remind him of a spider, in fact. One particular genus that had become legendary among invertebrate zoologists and computational physicists alike: a problem-solver that improvised and drew up plans far beyond anything that should have been able to fit into such a pinheaded pair of ganglia. Portia. The eight-legged cat, some had called it. The spider that thought like a mammal.”But while Rorschach in the previous book was endlessly fascinating to me, the quiet menace of Portia - even after that ending - was just underwhelming enough to continue persistent confused monotony.
————
And then those damn vampires that idiotic humans brought back from extinction via genetic tinkering — and immediately proceeded to enslave them through the exploitation of the “Crucifix Glitch” (vampire brain visual cortex is wired differently, leading to right angles inducing horrible seizures). The problem for me was that I found vampires the weakest part in Blindsight and did my best to ignore them, which in that book was not too difficult. Here, however, vampire takes center stage, exhibiting such powers that I will never believe they would have ever gone extinct in the first place.
I don’t care about that vampire, and ignoring them was not possible here . Thank
————
One thing I advise for anyone venturing to read this book is to read The Colonel before this one. That novelette should have been a prologue to this book, featuring Jim Moore, Siri Keeton’s father, and a decent introduction to hive minds of this universe — including the Bicamerals that are among the central forces in Echopraxia. If there’s ever another edition, it should be included as Chapter Zero.
————
Overall, it’s a 2-star read for me. And although I hate giving the book a low rating when it is not actually a bad book, I rate on the impact it had on me and not on any greater merit, and I had to force myself to pick it back up.
Buddy read with Phil and carol.
My enthusiastic review of Blindsight: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... English The novel is surprisingly easy to place in the taxonomy of great science fiction. Of course, to do so, one must first place Blindsight in it's proper place. It was a philosophical discussion on consciousness. Echopraxia, follows it's predecessor's conclusions, necessary story extrapolations, but it takes a sharp right turn when it brings up its primary philosophical mode. We put down consciousness for a moment, and pick up the discussion on free will. It might help to know the definition of the title: The involuntary repetition or imitation of another person's actions.
I loved the old topic. I rather prayed that it would continue, and it did in a lesser capacity. But instead of blowing my conscious mind again, we came along on a Hard-Sci-Fi ride that bumped me about on a God trip.
Wait! Wait, you might say. Is this a lovecraftian mashup with hard sf? Nope. Then is it an unintelligent social-dynamic exploration thing? Nope, not at all. Then what is it?
It's an exploration of how biology wires us to look for god, and how that expression manifests in all the new subspecies of human, and it happens in some of the most surprising of ways. Why do his absolutely friggin' fantastic portrayals of vampires believe in God? They're so smart that we've enslaved them to play the stock market or work out the hoariest of mathematical calculations. They glitch when they see right angles, unless they're put on a drug cycle, but more than anything, they're the most frightening thing from humanity's past, and the reasons are constantly renewed.
Seriously. I'm in awe. Vampires are so damn unpredictable, and it's worse because they can fly ahead with so many strange mental predictors to play everyone out in real life as if we're just pawns in chess. You think you've heard this tale? Try again. These aren't any kind of vampire I've ever seen. Try describing an autistic savant as an ultimate predator and you might have a slight inkling, but believe me, these vamps are better. They're hardly one or two dimensional, and they definitely don't match up with anything remotely social.
If they can see ahead so far as to play with all our destinies, then we've got just a small part of this novel revealed. Unfortunately for us, every species likes to play god, and let's not forget the alien species that still makes me shiver in delight and awe.
For a novel that devotes so much attention to free will, I rarely had a feeling that I had any during the reading of it.
I think I play a game with novels that most of us play to a more or less greater degree. I enjoy trying to parse out the plot well before the official reveals. For this novel, I really tried. Unfortunately, I was consistently left floundering because my brain had short-circuited in much the same ways that the characters did, as well. We are wired this way. We see the tiger in the bush, whether or not the tiger is really there. We draw eyes on the wall and immediately extrapolate a deity that watches over us. I get it. And I love how these quasi-post-singularity humans mess with their own programming along the spectrum, to greater or lesser successes in warding off the tiger.
Even aliens have to deal with the tiger. You know what I mean, you Kipling readers. It's all about eat or be eaten, even when you're discussing God.
The one thing I love the most about the novel is the main character. It was a severe departure from Blindsight, because he isn't one of the many strangenesses that came out of humanity's evolution. He is an honest baseline human surrounded by others who are smarter, faster, and more adaptable than him. I won't get into his story because it's quite fun in the novel, but suffice to say, it's worth it.
Is this a worthy successor to Blindsight?
That's an excellent question. I truly loved Blindsight, and most of that was due in particular to the main topic at hand. Echopraxia, by contrast, is up against a very, very long tradition of writers who have all tried to tackle the same question. I did particularly enjoy how Peter Watts gave credit to Dune, which was an excellent example of the same.
On the balance, Echopraxia is a fantastic standalone novel. As a direct sequel, there are a few solid connection points, but it doesn't need or beg for true resolution from Blindsight.
If I try to balance the two novels together, Blindsight's weight will knock Echopraxia off the scale. It only suffers in direct comparison, but by itself it rocks.
Do I recommend the novel? Hell yes. Great action, great characters, excellent suspense, and (again) fanfuckingtastic aliens.
English 2022 Update:
I enjoyed this book much more the second time around compared to my first reading. It’s smarter, more coherent, and more interesting than I remember. I think I understood it better, both because I’m more familiar with some of the ideas Watts was working with, and also because I’m less allergic to the notion that “religious-esque” phenomena may arise from tinkering with human consciousness. Still hoping Watts will get around to continuing this series at some point…
Original Review from 2015:
In Echopraxia’s “Notes and References,” Peter Watts admits that this book might be a literary “faceplant.” I’m inclined to agree. This second installment in the Firefall series is impossible to assess without comparing it to its stunning and disturbing predecessor. Blindsight was innovative, expeditious, and chillingly fulfilling; Echopraxia is desultory, slow, and largely unrewarding. It signifies an unwelcome turn for an otherwise promising series.
Many of Echopraxia‘s failings are apparent from its first pages and persist throughout the novel. As a writer of hard science fiction, Watts has an understandable tendency to dwell on abstruse technological topics. This is not a problem as long as he includes a followable story and engaging characters to balance out his recondite descriptions of antimatter generators, morose musings about the inadequacies of human consciousness, and detailed structural portraits of ships designed for deep space travel. Blindsight achieved this balance with exceptional poise, but Echopraxia swings egregiously toward a heavy reliance on technical tropes while leaving plot and character far behind.
Biologist Daniel Brüks, Echopraxia’s protagonist, defies Watts’ every attempt to render him an interesting and believable character. Brüks is an intellectual “baseline” (i.e. an unaugmented human amongst transhuman companions)––a loner and natural skeptic whose defining feature is bemusement as he is swept into an extraterrestrial conflict he neither understands nor cares much about. Brüks is accompanied by a host of characters who are about as dull as he is (with the possible exception of military strategist Jim Moore, who we eventually discover is related to Siri Keeton, Blindsight’s protagonist). The origins of their motivations, goals and conflicts are unclear at the outset and arguably even less clear at the novel’s conclusion.
Watts retards Echopraxia by shifting his conceptual focus from speculations based on hard science toward imaginings of a mystical hive-mind intelligence for which he openly admits there is not a single shred of existing scientific evidence. These “Bicamerals” augment their brains to dissolve the illusion of individual consciousness in favor of an opaque and thoroughly religious groupthink that is vague to the point of meaninglessness. And yet, they are capable of generating (or at least overseeing) physical events and predicting real phenomena in ways that are sure to infuriate even the casual skeptic. It’s hocus-pocus legitimized by scientific jargon and the worn out assertion that science provides only provisional and not ultimate truths.
Perhaps the most distressing fact about Echopraxia is that almost all of its worthwhile moments and insights are recycled from Blindsight. The characters encounter the same (or at least a similar) alien lifeform as in the previous novel, but with far less exciting and meaningful consequences. Brüks participates in plenty of clever discussions about the evolution and limitations of human sentience, most of which would be more at home in Blindsight than they are in Echopraxia. Watts is indubitably a master at sabotaging his readers’ expectations, but does so this time around in ways that fail to logically align with a central storyline, character development, or thematic message. Nothing makes this point more emphatically than the remarkable contrast in the functions of two novels’ titular concepts; the idea of “blindsight” was a crucial element of how that story played out, whereas the word “echopraxia” doesn’t even show up until this book’s final act, and exerts little to no impact on unfolding events.
If there is a genuinely good book hidden somewhere in the pages of Echopraxia, exhuming it would take a lot more time and effort than I’m willing to shell out. However, having recently heard that Watts plans to continue the Firefall series, I have to admit that there is enough here to provide an adequate (if tenuous) bridge between two excellent novels. This is especially true in light of Watts’ frustratingly oblique but nevertheless tantalizing hints that Siri Keeton may again take center stage. Echopraxia’s conclusion also contains some underdeveloped but potentially illuminating ideas about madness, faith and betrayal that could be put to good use down the road. Watts is a talented and erudite thinker, so if he decides to come out for round three, I’ll give it a fair shake.
This is a harsh review, probably harsher than Watts deserves. Blindsight set such a high bar that perhaps it is unfair to expect him to produce a worthy successor. But with an eight-year gap to work with, it’s hard to believe Watts couldn’t come up with something much more entertaining and intellectually firm. As it is, Echopraxia is an ugly hodgepodge of scientific thought experiments and mystical ruminations that fails to recapture or embellish the raw force of Blindsight’s narrative unity.
This review was originally published on my blog, words&dirt. English If it wasn't for my co-readers of Blindsight encouraging ourselves onward, this would have been a solid DNF. While Blindsight explored what individuality and personality, Echopraxia mostly just explored Watts' navel.
I started it with enthusiasm, looking for a continuation of the story of Siri and his father, Colonel Moore. When it opened with a scene following the parasitologist Daniel Brük around his live-animal traps in the desert, I could not have been more pleased. The state of the Earth and of civilization in ten years or so post-launch of the Theseus gradually becomes clear. Unfortunately, there aren't many details that carry over from Blindsight. Group minds have developed further, although that's somewhat unclear, and a semi-religious order, nick-named the 'Hive,' has a nearby monastery where they have a controlled tornado. We also learn about the slow decay of the shared computer-reality Heaven, and the fast-moving environmental decay of the planet. There have also been plagues, with resultant zombie-like people remaining. It's a bleak, but not implausible vision.
Narrative is largely limited to Brük, although we occasionally jump to another. What is truly unfortunate for the reader, and I'm echoing a number of other reviewers here, is that Brük is largely clueless about what is happening, and literally ends up going along for the ride. A sudden attack drives Brük toward the safety of the Hive monastery and that's when the 'plot'-I use the term very loosely--begins. The attack coincides with the Hives' desire to know more about the Theseus' fate, and the Colonel's desire to know more about his son's.
“Moore had told him as much as he could understand, Brük supposed. There would be more. Solutions to problems no baseline could even see, let alone solve. A careful clandestine exit stage left, while unwitting pursuers followed a bright burning decoy toward the land of the comets. All spread out across the curve of his own personal diving belt, numbers and diagrams.
Once in space, things get less coherent. Brük finds himself engaging in philosophical debates with one of the highly augmented contractors, Sengupta. Many who read this talk about Watt's exploration of the philosophy of minds, and some of that comes into play here. I'll be honest with you though; unlike Stephenson who likes to stick with an idea and explore with endless detail, Watts seems to be more of a disciple of the two-beer school of thought: drink two beers and write down all the ideas that you and your friends talk about while hanging at the bar. They're cool ideas, but do they mesh? Form a cohesive whole, the way they did in Blindsight? I'd give a resounding 'no,' on that one.
Truth had never been a priority. If believing a lie kept the genes proliferating, the system would believe that lie with all its heart.
I realized I was in trouble when I realized how much I disliked the books' main character, Brük. While I thought at first he might be on a journey of Personal Transformation, it became clear he's Everyman, a viewpoint to express and argue ideas. Not only does he lack plot agency, he's also not likable. He dislikes almost everyone he encounters in the story, and those he supposedly 'likes,' he often actively antagonizes. He refuses offers of helping hands, yet is wounded when hands are extended to him. He is blatantly, excessively contrarian, hypocritical and oh-so-very human, and is easily the least enjoyable character in the book.
Side characters were actually far more interesting. The intensity of Valerie the vampire had her stealing her scenes. Lianna, ambassador between Hive and 'baselines,' actually acts as more of an emotional center and explainer, translating for the reader. There's very little humor, but some of the few moments come from Sengupta:
And then, more cheerfully: 'but if the mission does go pear-shaped, wouldn’t you rather die in your sleep than be wide awake and screaming when you get sucked into space?'
As always, Watts occasionally hits poetic beauty with his writing, and while it was often self-indulgent, I couldn't help but admire it.
And the ending. I stuck with it, hoping for a pay-off at least in plot, and perhaps details on the Theseus and the lifeforms from Blindsight. What was most frustrating is that while it was interesting, so much feels unresolved. Because Brük is left out of the discussion and missions, the reader is left with third-hand cluelessness as to plot details. We have to infer events after Brük encounters the fallout.
So, it barely works on plotting. Does it work on a philosophical front? I'd say no. Again, this is the 2 beer school of philosophy, where you sit down and draw upon a decade or two of wide-ranging knowledge in conversation, tugging on various strings and seeing where your ping-pong of ideas takes you. Unlike Blindsight, nothing here feels particularly cohesive, except perhaps some of the discussions about group mind/processing. Mostly it's scattershot and annoying. While I hold up BBlindsight and Starfish as stellar excellent examples of sci-fi done right, I'll never recommend Echopraxia.
One and a half dead snakes, rounding up to differentiate it from my one-star reviews.
Watt's helpful Reddit thread about Echopraxia that I wish I had found a month ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/SF_Book_Club...
Many, many thanks to Phil, for the bon mots and wise thoughts, Nataliya, for the sympathetic frustration, and for Stephen and David on the sidelines, sympathizing. English
Prepare for a different kind of singularity in this follow-up to the Hugo-nominated novel Blindsight
It's the eve of the twenty-second century: a world where the dearly departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues; where genetically engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans and soldiers come with zombie switches that shut off self-awareness during combat. And it’s all under surveillance by an alien presence that refuses to show itself.
Daniel Bruks is a living fossil: a field biologist in a world where biology has turned computational, a cat's-paw used by terrorists to kill thousands. Taking refuge in the Oregon desert, he’s turned his back on a humanity that shatters into strange new subspecies with every heartbeat. But he awakens one night to find himself at the center of a storm that will turn all of history inside-out.
Now he’s trapped on a ship bound for the center of the solar system. To his left is a grief-stricken soldier, obsessed by whispered messages from a dead son. To his right is a pilot who hasn’t yet found the man she's sworn to kill on sight. A vampire and its entourage of zombie bodyguards lurk in the shadows behind. And dead ahead, a handful of rapture-stricken monks takes them all to a meeting with something they will only call “The Angels of the Asteroids.”
Their pilgrimage brings Dan Bruks, the fossil man, face-to-face with the biggest evolutionary breakpoint since the origin of thought itself. Echopraxia (Firefall, #2)