Echopraxia

Echopraxia, a semi-sequel to Blindsight, is a fantastically inventive, mind expanding book and although it works well as a stand alone novel, I strongly recommend reading Blindsight first. Watts is one of the few authors out there who can write hard sci-fi with believable, compelling characters and Echopraxia is one of his best. Read it.

This book reminded me of "Ten Little Indians (And Then There Were None) in Space." The characters drop off one by one. I may reread it just to see if I missed the plot because it was too subtle. The end of humanity is implied at the end. Kind of like Childhood's End, but without the positive connotation. I liked Blindsight much better.

Loved Rifters and Blindsight - Echopraxia not so much.

The first 1/3 of the book was good, the second almost as good, and then the third part just slowly disintegrated into "what?" and eventually "meh..". Almost feels like there shoulda been a couple hundred pages more, to fill in the blanks and add a little depth.

Disappointed there was hardly any connection to the previous book.

Amazing book. Comes close to Blindsight (available online for free) for sheer wow factor. Really, the only reason it wasn't as impressive to me as Blindsight was that I'd read the latter first. Echopraxia expands upon the themes covered in that novel, and it's set in the same fictional universe, so I'd recommend reading them in order to fully appreciate this one. If you're into novels who really do their homework when it comes to the science portrayed, you'll appreciate how much in-depth research Peter Watts put into Echpraxia - see the Notes and References section, a big highlight of the books - although of course it's relevant to remember that well-written SF isn't so much science-turned-story as it is the act of taking an interesting idea ("What if consciousness hindered intelligence from realizing its true potential?") and exploring the limits of its implications via solid, consistent reasoning. Peter Watts does this very, very well, and Echopraxia is a fine example.

Highly recommended.

Difficult. Enjoyable. Challenging. Extremely hard sci-fi with copious notes.

My only quibble is that while I find his treatment of religious phenomena thought-provoking, so much so I'll use some of the articles he refers to when I teach Intro to the Study of Religion, his ideas about religions in Asia are heavy-handed and stereotypical.

Since he consults specialists in the various sciences when writing, I suggest he also consult someone with more than a passing familiarity with specific religions in the future.

Yep, it's Watts again. Looking for another category long ago lost on meaning and associating description.

Gotta love the NEED to classify and divide. Safe compartments. The strict procedure procuring Classic and Romantic philosophical approaches to the age old questions which (we think) define us. But this description falls way short.

The author's success in his previous realm of major study definitely gives him many qualifications that hold up in the real-time progress of several major prominent fields today (and tomorrow). His research and approach to the rhetorical is genuinely founded. What comes out of it is a page turning engagement.

I am a follower/admirer of Peter Watts' work-so 4.5 stars will ROUND UP.
(I would hopefully expect Mr. Watts would agree it is effortful to describe perfection based on either philosophical tool -
considering the human condition.)
INTENTION...however..

The following is my synopsis of an inspirational writer/communicator/inquisitor (with no spoiler alerts):

If you know anything about Peter Watts he's just damn cool.
Genuine would be my tag.
I would go as far as to modestly describe his extravasatory indulgence as Real-time Sci-Fi. If you are not aware that society is mainly being scripted (?), and that we truly have been living BEHIND progress, well then.. lol.

Like much of his previous impact, Watts truly sucks you into the laboring war of LIFE we are programmed to accept and seeks discovery upon clarification upon 'what if' and 'what NEXT'? - because the answers are seldom nicely wrapped. Where does the loop end? You'll find out how small your forced concocted box is, lest you practice Zen every day, and even then he'll have something tasty to add to THAT. Depending upon your TASTE that is..
But let's not get into ROUTINE.

His works will challenge you to re-engage and QUESTION academia and/or keep a dictionary/thesaurus handy for clarification. Call it re-research for us ALUMNI or implications of misdirection for those who are self-taught and full of life EXPERIENCE.

So, whether you OWE your next 3 lifetimes because of Kharma or can't pay those hideous exponentially growing school loans it makes no difference (maybe both). His prose is for all of us who want answers, even if they are POSSIBILITIES.
Humanity is more than romantic and classic. At least, we'd like to think we've EVOLVED past this point.
Does "As above, so Below" MEAN there is only black and white? Shades of gray simply describe a certain BLENDING of both..

Mr. Watts simply reminds us what others have all along. Question everything and rarely believe anything as definitive.

"Progress" in bio/tech fields is reported in the news every day. What is not readily reported or DIRECTED TO report is where he resides. Mostly...
-Don't let this dissuade you in the least. His attention to detail in dis-configuring mainstream ideas (not necessarily facts) from what we've been taught wraps around the story line and weaves into the characters by any means necessary. And it will cause you to exercise your gray matter healthily. After all, we are a dysfunction-ally messy lot.
Like it or NOT.

This work leaves me juggling his always present, genuinely diligent essence of what it is to be human or human-ESQUE in living with what we are (?) and what we've created in addition to what we THINK we truly know to be...uh-REAL.
Let's just redefine reality because it's NOT the way in which we perceive, present it. We want qualitative perfection.
Some definitions only dredge up more attempts at re-defining. Is this what it is to chase a deity in what we call LIFE?

Funny little electrons playing hide and seek-but that's only a failed observation, right?? Oh, perception IS a funny thing.

It's alright really, the brain will fill in what we don't readily catch-because of conditioning and the like.

Let go and just let this HUMAN drag you toward truths-and lies-you had not considered before because of every constraint you can conjure on this lil rock.

-Watts' body of work (not just this title) speaks for itself, if for anything-struggle, because we need to CHANGE our emotional reaction away from fear.
From what we don't understand.
Another human QUALITY? Have we always been afraid of ourselves?
check out the authors website: http://rifters.com/

I loved Watts' 'Blindsight', the book that comes before Echopraxia, so I was pretty excited to download and read this baby. And then I was disappointed. Why?

Watts is a great writer who looks towards the not too distant future and imagines technology driving us to a dark dystopia (the Singularity is Near, and it's really really bad). He continues the story with Echopraxia, but, rather than light-years away, much of this story takes place in or near Earth. We have a chance to see, close-up, the world that his been created by the singularity. So far so good (or bad). But while he expands on some themes introduced in Blindsight I was less taken with this novel. The central character, Daniel Bruks, seems less developed, less interesting than Siri Keaton. There are also a bit too many alien or pseudo human intelligences who can think rings around us "baselines". Vampires, aliens, colony minds. Cool ideas but maybe too cool, and too smart. If they're so much smarter than me, how can I understand their motivations so I can understand this book? Mysterious things are happening and I, like the character, must take motivations and goals on faith. Yes, I get that there can be beings that are beyond my comprehension, but if you put too many of them in a story, you're going to lose my human comprehension. The book also drags towards the end, with a lot of wandering introspection by the narrator. I get the reasons why, but I was still starting to get bored, something that never happened to me while reading Blindsight.

The book is also very very dark. Yes, I realize some Watts fans are saying "What did you expect from Peter Watts?" Fair enough. But as dark as Blindsight was, at least he gave his readers Siri, who we grew to like, and who grew as a character. In Echopraxia there was nobody I liked and the way they grew was... well, I'd better avoid spoilers. So unless you want to finish a book feeling very very depressed about our collective future, you might want to avoid this one.

All that said, he's still a fascinating writer with a unique vision. If I think this book is flawed, and I do, it still kept me going, grinding away til the end.

Mind-blowing. Head-scratching. Hair-raising. Watts is firing on all cylinders here, which means the jargon is thick, and things like cause and effect are not always as clear as they could be, but as a fin-stabilized hypersonic delivery vehicle for existential terror and micro/macrocosmic wonder, it succeeds mightily. Hugely recommended (but read "Blindsight" first).

While Peter Watts achieve to assemble some great ideas in this book - like the transhumans introduced and the faith based science -, I didn't enjoyed the story and the characters all that much to the point that I'll pretend this story never took place in the Blindsight Universe.

I also think the writing was very confusing this time around, and other fans of the series seems to be willing to reread the book to circumvent this issue. I think I'll just go so far as read a plot analysis on the Wikipedia when availble.

Too much incredulous trudging for the few flashes of brilliance. Make no mistake, there are some nuggets, but overall, this and its predecessor are a difficult narrative slog that never lend the reader a helping hand. Too slaved to the ideas. Not enough attention to creating an enjoyable story.

If you loved Blindsight, STAY AWAY FROM THIS TRAVESTY OF A BOOK. Blindsight is honestly my favorite book. After having read all the hard-sci-fi classics, Blindsight (in my opinion) is the greatest, most brilliant, most shocking and thought provoking - truly a new level to aspire to.

As good a Blindsight is, that is how pretentious and incoherent Echopraxia is. I cannot understand how this is the same author - unless he was pressed with a deadline or something like that which utterly and completely compromised the integrity of his work. The only possible explanation for all these good reviews is that these people, like me, love Blindsight, but can't bear to be critical of this atrocious sequel.

The writing style has become intolerable with endless similes that halfheartedly attempt to be stark and appalling. I do mean ENDLESS. I'll flip to a random page for examples:

"The spacesuit wrapped around him like an asphyxiating parasite."
"The nozzle up his #ss twitched like a feeding proboscis."
"Needles of mercury drooled from the mirrorball above like strings of gluey saliva."

The book is literally completely saturated with this drivel.

All the interesting concepts from the first book are effectively thrown away. Watts' brilliant vampire concept was so frightening, but they had a weakness in the crucifix glitch, which made things interesting. In this book, oh yeah the vampires just figured out how to not think about it so no more glitch... Unfortunately this is just one example of Watts trashing the story and concepts he worked so hard to build in Blindsight.

Seriously, Peter Watts, wtf man???

Though far from what one thinks of as typical hard sf, Peter Watts’ 2006 Blindsight was one of the genre’s most cutting edge stories knowledge-wise. The larger societal mindset still trying to catch up to the implications of modern neuroscience, Watts used fresh data to fictionally present many of the roots of human behavior brain research is uncovering. The follow-up novel eight years in the making, 2014’s Echopraxia is, at least, worth the wait. Though lacking a similarly engaging main premise, Watts’ continues with an agenda of hyper-determinism, producing a harsh, challenging look at the mind and its potentials.

Wikipedia defines ‘echophenomena’ as “’automatic imitative actions without explicit awareness,’ or pathological repetitions of external stimuli or activities, actions, sounds, or phrases, indicative of an underlying disorder.” Echopraxia is the ‘action’ portion of the definition. Beyond mere hammer-to-the-knee, it refers to the deep, sub-conscious motivations of human behavior, differing worldviews, and the manner in which people respond to the exigencies of life. These are the areas Watts expands the idea in Echopraxia. From religion to existentialism, the limits of science to pure fear, a broad array of topics are confronted by one man taken on a trip he wished he could have avoided.

Echopraxia is the story of Daniel Brueks, a biologist working in the Oregon wilderness to exterminate species with corrupt DNA. The monastery in the desert below, with its pet tornado, is his entertainment. But when attacked by an unseen, inhuman entity, it proves his only refuge. Meeting monks and soldiers, scientists and laborers within, when the attack shifts to the monastery Brueks quickly finds himself on the Crown of Thorns—a space vessel capable of orbiting the sun at close distance. Things getting further and further out of control, someone, or something, from the solar system is also bent on getting at those inside the vessel. A pawn on a game board of biotechnically advanced rooks, bishops, and knights, Brueks spends every moment thereafter scrambling to stay alive as post-humanity unleashes itself around him.

Echopraxia’s storyline is not linearly, rather laterally connected to Blindsight. (Siri’s story dovetails into Bruek’s toward the conclusion, answering questions regarding the fate of Earth at the end of Blindsight). Watts shifts the tension from a mysterious alien entity to something closer to home: other humans—or at least the various forms humanity has been modified into. Vampires, zombies, bicamerals, biomodified humans—all carry on their strange existences around Brueks as he maneuvers the zero g corridors of the Crown of Thorns trying to get a handle on their alliances, intents, and simply enough, mode of existence. Possessing only a few simple implants, Bruek’s body is veritably Neolithic compared to Valerie the vampire, Cooper the soldier, and Lina the upgraded human. Each type providing Watts a different stage to expound his ideas, the inherent consciousness, behavior, relationships, and neuroscience collectively form the conceptual core of the story.

And expound Watts does. At times feeling like pure rant, and at others like integrated exposition, the unrelenting ultra-realist worldview of Blindsight continues in Echopraxia. (“Truth had never been a priority. If believing a lie had kept the genes proliferating, the system would believe that lie with all its heart” is just a sample quote.) Where the worldview was expressed in Blindsight via characters confronting the unknown, and thus complementing the story, in Echopraxia, there is more straining, more forcing of the underlying ideas into the plot. Not always intrinsic to conversation or stream of thought, there are moments, some chapter openings for example, where the fourth wall becomes visible—not penetrated, but perceptible. For this, Echopraxia lacks the cogency of Blindsight, and can at times feel like a soap box rather than description of a human dealing with the “people” and world around him. Certainly there are moments they work together satisfactorily, the ending well done, for example, but there remain moments wherein a dislocation of agenda and plot is visible.

In the end, Echopraxia carries on the ideas of Blindsight by presenting scenarios wherein people confront the deepest psycho-neurotic aspects of being human. Digging deeper into possible varieties of post-humanity, the neuroscience of zombies, vampires, bicamerals, the uploaded, and the biomodified is presented in comparison to a “normal” human as each come to terms with existence in their own way. Watts writing style still filled with dark satire and cutting commentary, he continues to press the accelerator of determinism to the floor, driving at a point where humanity must face the realities of their physical existence if they are to ever progress. I’m not certain Echopraxia equals Blindsight, but it remains at the bleeding edge of research into the brain and human behavior, and for this is as relevant as can be in hard sci-fi today

An anticipated sequel to his 2006 hard science fiction novel Blindsight, Echopraxia exists in the same 'universe' but can easily be read on its own as the two novels do not directly share any characters and the plots of each are self-contained. While largely disconnected by story or character, these sister novels do share style and theme, so that those who have read Blindsight can reasonably expect to find a similar work here.

Each novel is staggeringly intelligent, dense with science, technology, philosophy, and speculation. The major theme of Blindsight is speculation on the evolution of consciousness and intelligence. In Echopraxia these themes are revisited, but they are expanded upon into new arenas, not merely rehashed. I personally found the first novel both infuriating and wondrous. Much of how I responded to it held true for my reaction to Watt's latest.

However, I began Echopraxia actually relieved and hopeful, for in addition to its heady, hard SF mastery, it appeared to not be avoiding actual action. The novel opens with Daniel Bruks, a field-biologist who has fled into exile into a remote wilderness. Bruks has fled from a humanity that is becoming decreasingly biological in favor of technology and computation, and he has fled a horrific violence for which he unwittingly served as pawn.

A sudden attack on an isolated desert monastery near Bruks pulls him into their conflict with other factions of Earth's growing post-human society and leads Bruks, along with some other visitors to the monastery, on the monk's journey to discover a truth of the divine at the center of the solar system.

The opening action of the novel sets the stage for the actual bulk of the book, which similar to Blindsight, skips action for the play of 'big ideas' between characters, the relatively familiar/normal Bruks and the more foreign post-humans (which include zombies and the vampires already familiar to readers of Blindsight that Watts has so fabulously rendered plausible in a hard SF setting.)

As Blindsight contained the very basic SF trope of first contact as a basis for its deep investigation into those themes of consciousness/intelligence, Echopraxia's plot at its simplest level bears familiarity to the much maligned Star Trek V to delve more seriously into the concept of the divine and of faith and science in understanding/predicting the universe. I personally find myself drawn to these themes, and for that reason (in addition to some more moments of entertaining action) I ended up appreciating this novel to its predecessor.

The heavy nature of the ideas in Echopraxia make it a novel that really requires rereading to sufficiently grasp, and it is the type of novel that makes you want to talk to other people about, at least in terms of those themes/ideas. Thus, as with Blindsight and much of hard SF, the ideas here trump the actual fiction. Over some drinks you'll want to talk about the science and the speculation on matters religious and biological and physical. You won't want to talk about the characters much or what happened in the story because those details are all relatively throwaway.

As fascinating and as intellectually stimulating as Echopraxia is, its entertainment never goes beyond academic. So filled with post-human characters and events the very human reader finds very little to emotionally connect with, leaving the novel feel rather hollow outside of the 'hard SF/technology' department. This novel is going to be loved by people who appreciate a secular and actual scientific take on the concept of divinity and who aren't uncomfortable with emphasis on speculative, sometimes disturbing, scientific content above more traditional aspects of story. While not my favorite kind of SF, this is well done.

Disclaimer: I received a free advanced electronic reading copy of this from Tor Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In Echopraxia, biologist Dan Bruks is thrust into events that began after Firefall, Humanity's first contact with a sentient alien species. With conflict between the hive-minded Bicamerals and an escaped vampire with zombie soldiers, Dan quickly finds himself on a spacecraft with the Bicamerals, vampire and zombies headed toward the sun, his only friends an old (Human) soldier with a complicated history of his own and a woman who has given in her life and much of her freedom to be able to interact with the Bicamerals. Ultimately, what Dan and the others find may wind up shaping Human history for generations to come.

Like it's predecessor Blindsight, Echopraxia comes off more as a vehicle to expound upon various philosophical concepts than as a story unto itself. While the notion of speculative fiction as societal exploration device is common within the genre (and really, any good literature), where Echopraxia struggles is with the story...not the ideas behind the story. Echopraxia is difficult to read, possessing generally unsympathetic characters whose motivations and actions are often difficult to understand, let alone care about. However, what makes Echopraxia difficult to read also makes it inherently interesting. The author delves into many ideas about who we currently are as conscious beings and what varied directions we might be heading in the not-so-distant future. I just wish the story, the plot, the characters lived up to such big ideas. Only read Echopraxia if you've read its predecessor Blindsight and are willing to accept that the author set aside typical story structure and devices in lieu of highlighting some really big, albeit interesting and fundamental and worthy, concepts.

Usually sequels require the reading of volume one to be satisfying, but in “Echopraxia” (Tor, $24.99, 383 pages), a sequel to “Blindsight,” Peter Watts does an excellent job of making “Echopraxia” a standalone novel – though it does end on a note that opens the door for another book about a future with reconstituted vampires (who went extinct when homo sapiens came up with right angles (don’t ask)) and a very odd alien life form.

On its own, however, “Echopraxia” is a fast-moving, often confusing story about a field biologist who gets caught up in a complex plot about advanced humans, the aforementioned vampires (who were brought back to life after their DNA was discovered) and a long sojourn in outer space. To go even the slightest bit beyond that bare outline would require way too much explanation, so let me just say that “Echopraxia” is a demanding, well-written, very fast-moving book that recalls the glory days of hard science fiction (with the caveat that modern science is really hard) and is populated with characters who don’t fit well into the stereotypes so common to popular fiction. If you’re in the mood to take a chance, “Echopraxia” is a worthy roll of the dice.

Peter Watts' writing, his ideas and his concepts, are simply mind-blowing. The only negative things I can say about Echopraxia (as well as the also masterful prior novel, BlindSight) are that I now find it hard to even suspend belief for an instant when attempting to enjoy more traditional "science"-fiction novels or movies. Peter Watts has literally turned my views on the nature of the near future, as well as alien intelligence, inside out.

Echopraxia is absolutely masterful speculative fiction, rigorous, unafraid to truly challenge the reader. It gets into your brain, and then slowly starts to push and press outwards. There should be more writers like this.

Peter Watts is not a prolific writer; sadly his works are few and far between but, my word, it is worth the wait. Set some time after the events portrayed in the equally astonishing ‘Blindsight’, the central character is Daniel Brüks, one of the last remaining baseline humans, eschewing the apparent advantages of post-human augmentations and living a simple biologist’s life investigating stuff in the desert. He quickly gets dragged by a series of improbable though oddly plausible coincidences onto a shipload of post-human characters with various degrees of weirdness and Valerie, the team vampire and her zombie entourage.

The ever useful Wikipedia defines echopraxia as “the involuntary repetition or imitation of another person's actions” which makes for an interesting and though provoking subtext to the novel. There is a lot to think about, too, with musing on the nature of consciousness, humanity and faith just for starters. Bundle all that into incredibly dense but well researched proper, truly hard science fiction and a cast of generally unlikable characters, Echopraxia is no easy read but it is never boring. Small elements of space opera glimmer through chinks in the otherwise impenetrable hard sf shell so there is enough pace, intrigue and dialogue to keep the story moving along but a blistering page-turner it is not.

At the end of the novel are a number of surprisingly interest appendices where Watts discusses current thinking and published scientific works around the central themes of the novel – they’re well worth a read. Echopraxia is original, complex and very clever, perhaps too clever and I’m definitely going to have to read it again to fully appreciate its..um…cleverness as I definitely have the feeling that I’ve only scratched he surface in my first reading.

I enjoyed Blindsight despite (or because of ) the problematic writing style. But it was only a prelude to a full-blown cyber punk / techno babble style gone wild. Echopraxia's bonfire of words literally crackle as they portray an almost hallucinogenic vision of a future technological dystopia. But all that brilliance can be taxing. Along with period avoidance, dialogue as thought (and vice versa), random use of quotation marks, indecipherable points of view, etc the plethora of ideas, terms and names creates an almost dizzying effect. Action scenes are disjointed, almost dreamlike characters are murky shadows; time fluctuates.

A future of vampires, zombies (engineered, not traditional) and a resurgence of religion make for a fanciful tale as Watts strains mightily to make it seem normal. Although a lengthy appendix is added for those wanting to explore the scientific bases for the book's ideas on consciousness, religion, intelligence and free will, many will still come away shaking their heads. The flood of creative names - Portia, Colonel Carnage, Bicameral, Quinternet, Uncanny Valley, Fireflies, Scramblers, Angels of the Asteroid - combined with the abbreviations, neurological and singularity terms result is an almost rapturous torrent more abstruse than enlightening. The inclusion of a diagram of the Crown of Thorns was essential for following the action - a big problem in many space novels.

The story is simple if convoluted. An unwired human biologist is caught up in a zombie/vampire religious war and escapes on a ship to parts unknown. The commander is the father of the survivor in Blindsight, convinced his sons is still alive and sending strange "messages". A galley of futuristic rogues accompany them and though First Contact (or rather Second Contact) is made, they are equally in danger from Vampire Valerie. Things fall apart and they return to a disintegrating civilization where our hero begins a strange quest for clues as to the purpose of the mission and of course, it ends on an enigmatic note that the author attempts to explain in the appendix. Nobody can decide what it means which is appropriate for a chapter titled, "Prophet".

My Grade - B+

"All animals are under stringent selection pressure to be as stupid as they can get away with." (Echopraxia, p. 23).

Obviously - intelligence costs.

Echopraxia (and prequel Blindsight) present ordinary, baseline humans dealing with entities far smarter than they are. It's a hard call for the author: are his super-intelligent beings smarter than the author himself, his readers? How then can they possibly be imagined?

Try another question first. What possible utility could super-intelligence have in evolutionary terms? After all houseflies, not known as paragons of smartness, seem to have had no problem colonising the planet. The answer has been known for a long time: in a predictable environment (aka ecological niche) the organism can get away with hard-wired reflexes - instincts - and that's the way to go. Intelligence is the way animals deal with problem-solving in variable, somewhat unpredictable environments, often when they are social creatures and have to compete with equally-complex and hard-to-fathom conspecifics.

Still, we are where we are and there's not much sign of super-intelligence in the myriad species inhabiting this globe. So what are the fictional super-smarts actually doing?

In Blindsight/Echopraxia they are capable of maintaining and manipulating multiple highly-abstract models applied to extrapolating from the current situation. They understand what they perceive at a much deeper level and can predict and direct consequences far better than we can. This assumes of course that these deep levels of abstraction are actually relevant: a quantum physicist understand the dynamics of the world far more profoundly than any lay person but in everyday life it makes no difference - and even gets in the way.

To be super-intelligent in a way which pays off you have to be in a situation where complex phenomena are directly causally present, and you must possess super-senses and super-tools to act effectively on your superior understanding. In Echopraxia for example, super-smarts are able to perceive and affect human brain states directly, and manipulate effective theories of human brain functioning in real-time. No wonder they run rings round us. They have a similar relationship to advanced technologies, which makes them pretty effective in dealing with power and transportation platforms and weapon systems - always useful in an SF novel!

The moral is that being as stupid as possible (but not stupider) is the right answer - but the ratchet of that minimal level keeps cranking up, as science and technology complexify our environment.

So how does Peter Watts convey to us, his readers, the super-intelligence of his protagonists? By making his stories intricate puzzles where we're never quite sure who's doing what to whom, and why. After the novel is finished, you reflect, try to make some sense out of the hints, the apparently purposeless or perverse actions. And then it starts to come together: being slow-witted is sometimes homologous to cranking down the clock speed of the very smart.

I was so excited to discover that Echopraxia, a follow-up/quasi-sequal to Blindsight, that I bought the Kindle version rather than wait days for a physical book to arrive. So, I was predisposed to like it (disclaimer). With that out of the way: Echopraxia is set after the events of Blindsight, and focuses on Daniel Brüks, a baseline biologist harboring some guilt from his unintentional role in a bio-weapon attack. Other major characters include the father of Siri Keeton (the main character in Blindsight), who is a Colonel in the WestHem military (presumably "western hemisphere"), a vampire named Valerie, two augmented humans, and a hive-mind. Without giving too much away, the immense solar-power station and tele-matter array called Icarus, which fed Theseus its anti-matter fuel in Blindsight, plays a huge role.

Echopraxia is a good read (in some parts, a very good read!), and forces you to pause occasionally and think about what's actually going on. The prose is dense, and the vocabulary could be intimidating for anyone who hasn't read a lot of science fiction; the times I've ever used the "dictionary" feature of my Kindle tablet is when reading one of Watts' books. If you *haven't read Blindsight, you'll definitely want to read that first - otherwise, the appearance of "vampires" and zombies, and assorted other tech are going to leave you very confused.

The plot is interesting, although I was annoyed a little early on at Brüks for his rather panicky responses to some situations. As the book progressed, though, I got more engrossed. Echopraxia falls a little short of Blindsight, which was more focused, more gripping, and induced an actual state of dread in me while reading it; I was able to put Echopraxia down for things like cooking, eating and sleeping, as opposed to the obsessive-compulsive manner in which read its predecessor. But it's a good read nevertheless - endlessly thought-provoking and darkly pessimistic - and if you liked the first book, you'll enjoy this one too.

Echopraxia is an absolute masterpiece of hard science fiction, and a great followup to Blindsight. It's different from its predecessor in many ways: the pacing is slower, the tone is more thoughtful and less unrelentingly dark, and the story is not quite as tightly focused. On the other hand, it offers a spectacularly broad look at the world in which Blindsight is set, with much more variation in setting, characters, concept, and material. If you finished Blindsight thinking "I really want to know more about this world, and how all of this amazing weird stuff fits together," then you'll love Echopraxia. It delves far more deeply into many of the ideas that were raised in Blindsight, and explores a much more diverse set of phenomena, technology, and organizations that inhabit the same world. It's set on Earth during the same time period in which Blindsight takes places, and so isn't a *true* sequel, as we learn very little about what became of the original mission or cast of characters. There are certainly overarching plot connections--the same alien species from Blindsight once again plays a pivotal plot role here--but the stories are happening in parallel, rather than in serial. Watts' incredible talent for speculative fiction worldbuilding is on even greater display here, as is his ability to seamlessly interweave that worldbuilding with plot. As with Blindsight, the level of originality and detail is on par with Neal Stephenson at his very best, and (again, as with Blindsight) Watts is able to smoothly blend discussions of science, technology, and philosophy in with his plot (in contrast to Stephenson, who tends to bracket his worldbuilding into long expository mini-essays). The range of concepts and ideas--both scientific and philosophical--explored here is massive, and each is meticulously researched; there's even a "works cited" at the end of the book, pointing you to academic papers discussing the real-world bases for much of the material.

Like Blindsight, there are many elements that look superficially like fantasy: vampires, zombies, mystical experiences, and so on. Once again, though, don't let this fool you into thinking Echopraxia isn't *hard* science fiction: each of the world's elements is carefully grounded in science and naturalistic explanations. Where Blindsight was a wild roller-coaster ride, Echopraxia is a nature hike through a lush rainforest: it may not be quite as pulse-poundingly thrilling, but there's a lot more to take in and process, and you have time to reflect on what's going on. The treatment of religion as a natural human phenomenon is among the best I've ever seen in a novel; if you're intrigued by the idea that mystical revelation and scientific reasoning might not only be compatible, but two sides of the same coin, then you'll very much enjoy this book. If you're looking for more of the world you got a taste of in Blindsight, you'll very much enjoy this book. If you enjoy extremely creative, extremely hard science fiction, you'll very much enjoy this book. As with Blindsight, I think it's important to emphasize that last point: if you get turned off by lots of high-level jargon from a wide variety of sciences (even when it's appropriately used and meticulously sourced), this book probably is not for you. If you're not up on current theories in neuroscience, physics, mathematics, complexity science, and some other fields, you may need to do some Googling to understand everything that happens: it's a heady book, unusually so for also having such a great story and compelling writing. The effort is well worth it, though, and the payoff is extreme. It's a tour-de-force of a novel, and I very much hope that Watts follows it up with a third book in the series, bringing both storylines together and resolving the amazing stories he's given us.

"Vampires in Space" could have been an alternate title for this story. It's bad enough that we get vampires littering the "young adult" genre. Do they have to show up in hard sci fi as well? I found it hard to take this story seriously as a result. I did get through it, and the first 2/3 of the story was relatively interesting, but I found the finale confusing and made me feel that I'd wasted my time on this novel. The writing style overall is difficult, and he did not do a good job at describing the environment in which the story took place. I never really got a good picture for example what the ship they were travelling in truly looked like or how big it was. A lot of my complaints with this novel are the same as I had with the first in the series, Blindsight. If there is a third story in this collection, I will not be buying it.

Crazy inventive intelligent neurological opinionated hard-science alien-contact what's going on here anyhow but I liked it.

I do think that the author's diatribe against sentience is getting a little shrill (what, did sentience kill your dog when you were a kid?). OK self-awareness might not be the ultimate thing in terms of intelligence but give us a break please. Also the vampire was just too unbelievably competent. NO predator is that superior to its prey, and if they had really been that smart they would have found a way to not die out in the first place yes? I would also have liked the protagonist to have maybe been less pathetic. Maybe have him embrace the ending. OK I know why the author chose this path but throw your audience a bone now and then will ya? Not as coherent as Blindsight (what was all that about God being a virus that needs to be wiped out?) but still a good read. There sure aren't many books like this out there.

This was a fantastic follow-up to Blindsight. The concepts contained therein are weighty and cumbersome to wrap your mind around if you don't have the scientific background, but even the lay reader will understand the basic premises. In fact, might even learn something in the process of reading a book that is reminiscent to me of the way Neal Stephenson writes.
I spent most of the book going "what the he..." and the rest of the book thinking "HOLY CRAP!", but the journey was great and the writing engaging and at the end of the day, that's what we all want in a book.
This isn't light reading by any means, but fans of Peter Watts will already know that and everyone else will figure it out soon enough. Keep going, even if it feels rough, because it's well worth the ride.

Just as thought provoking as its predecessor Blindsight. Watts envisions a terrifying future with technology and different forms of life that challenge what it means to be human and what the value of consciousness is. The aliens, vampires, AI, Bicameral, all force you to think of different forms that intelligence can take and what they mean to each other.

The novel follows a baseline (non-upgraded) human, in a world that contains post-human intelligence (groups of humans that have self-modified and networked their brains, as well as a new species of human with vastly superior cognitive abilities). The first half of the book seemed to go extremely slowly. Not because things weren’t happening – there was a lot of action. But the protagonist’s actions didn’t seem to affect anything. They didn’t drive the story forward. It was slow even though the plot and pacing were fast. If you keep reading, you eventually realize why this is.

Because the post-humans in this novel are the equivalents of Lovecraft’s Gods.

Lovecraft is very popular nowadays, especially among people who’ve never read him. Cthulhu has huge name recognition, yet most people know him as a gothed-up Godzilla. The essence of Lovecraft is to make humanity brutally insignificant, through the use of opponents so powerful they can’t be opposed, and so alien they are incomprehensible. It doesn’t work in Lovecraft’s writings that well (anymore) because the unknown areas he was exploiting are less unknown now. We’ve been off this planet a few times, space is less mysterious. The deep ocean isn’t as murky. Psychic powers have been shown to not be real. Etc.

It’s been said that a good translator doesn’t translate a work directly on a line-by-line basis. A good translator writes the book that the author would have written if the author spoke the language natively.

This is the book HP Lovecraft would write if he was writing today.

The reason the protagonists actions don’t seem to affect anything is because he is a pawn, and the real players are post-humans. Every action he is contemplating has already been taken into account and incorporated. His decisions are as determined and integral to the real player’s strategy as the falling of a domino, and he has as much ability to alter his fate as that critical domino piece. But it is impossible for him to really know that, he can only determine it after the fact when it looks like everything he did appears to have been exactly what was planned for. So he has to keep believing that he can affect his own life, that his decisions are his to make, as an article of faith. Because maybe they really DIDN’T foresee the next thing he’s doing! The book is a relentless, non-stop campaign of seeing that faith crushed again and again and again. At every turn humanity is utterly powerless, their efforts are futility. Greater forces are now the true players. It is a bleak hellscape of hopelessness.

What’s worse is that we can’t even comprehend what the post-human minds are up to. We are literally incapable of grasping it all, which is why it is never explained. You can catch some hints of the plot of the book if you look hard, but always only in retrospect, and it never fully makes sense. The only way to write a story of a post-human conflict for human readers is to leave them as lost and confounded as the protagonist, because any plot a human could understand wouldn’t be post-human, would it?

And the mood of the writing constantly reinforces the murkiness. Not only are all the sets stark, and too dim or too bright, and rotating, and off-kilter; not only are all the ambient sounds clicking and scratching and buzzing; not only is everyone always holding something back and slightly out of touch… oh no. Watts even goes so far as to make the world require a lot of cognitive effort to understand. He doesn’t say something like “They crashed into an aircraft carrier,” and then proceeds to describe the crashing. He will describe the sensation of being thrown about, and screeching metal sounds, and then take you outside and describe the metal surfaces you are viewing, without ever saying the words “crashed” or “aircraft carrier”, so you have to figure that out for yourself. I don’t know if that was intentional, but it is fatiguing and it makes the world harder to understand, so reinforces the theme of “you are too small to grasp this”.

This is a horror novel, IMHO. I generally don’t find horror scary. This scared the living heck out of me. For the couple weeks I was reading it my IRL mood took a very dark turn, my life was unpleasant, and things sucked. This is a powerful and amazing book, and it should come with a memetic warning. If you can weather a temporary mood disruption, read this book. If this is not a good time in your life, or you’re worried about downward spiral effects, avoid it like the plague.

This is easily my favorite book of the past year, and I will not forget it for a long time.

While I admit the setting and underlying concepts are intriguing, there is no particularly engaging story to go with them. The characters are too flat to make a reader interested in what happens to them. The creatures who were supposed to be beyond human behaved like one dimensional stock characters, and the human central character actions and demonstrated motivation did not fit believably with the provided back-story.

It felt as if the author developed creatures and pieces of technology he wanted to show off, and strung together just barely enough story to give an excuse for them being present.

Be sure to read "Blindsight" first.
Keep a dictionary handy. This guy is SMART. Even so, the characters are real and believable, dialogue crisp, settings... well, settings were a little hard to follow. Author makes HUGE assumptions and expects us to either follow, or to just keep reading until he clears it up. If you have a taste for challenge in your books, this is master class.

Nobody infuses hard sci-fi with the suspense, action, grand themes, and compelling characters Watts does. The science and philosophy continues to sparkle as usual in Watts' stories, but this time he adds religion to the usual topics he expertly mulls over.

Just a genius, spectacular book. And you want a likeable character? What's not to like about Valerie?

If you enjoy the works of Ann Leckie, Simon Morden, and Gavin G. Smith, you'll love this too.

In Echopraxia, Watts manages to wed the Weird and Surreal to Hard SF and find the beauty and spirit in biological determinism. Blindsight was one of my favourite SF reads in recent years and Echopraxia is a more-than-worthy companion. It's one of the few novels I've read in the last few years that has prompted me to want to re-read it again immediately -- something it has in common with Leckie's Ancillary Justice and little else in recent memory. Highest Possible Recommendation.

Peter Watts has added some new skills to his toolbelt in this novel. This is a book of myths and metaphors, holy quests and sacraments and messiahs, as well as a tale of slow submission to temptation by the protagonist in the face of necessity, dressed up in the hardest of science fiction and with the usual firehose of science to make it all disturbingly plausible.

Like Blindsight, this is a novel that feels like it has changed my brain at some unconscious level, and is going to take a while to digest fully. I'm unsure whether the ending is terribly depressing or if this is just my own baseline human chauvinism and the ending is better considered transcendently hopeful.

But seriously, this is hard SF of the highest order. It's also extremely and unflinchingly bleak.

The human-ish characters are well drawn and plausible, and the tapestry of events and agendas in the background is enough to propel the complicated plot forward at a cracking pace.

As was Blindsight, it is thought-provoking and unsettling.

Well worth any SF fans' time and attention.

A dystopian author tries to examine the difference between intelligence and self-consciousness or sentience. Remarkably, he depicts a human civilization not worth caring about, so when the aliens win readers might regard it as more of a mercy killing.

Where Blindsight was an interesting book where something happened, Echopraxia is just a meandering, ultimately pointless journey. It has some, ok a lot, of very interesting philosophical questions and discussions. By the end of the book I found myself wondering if there was a point to the plot at all.

Against the background of every science-fiction trope, Watts picks the best and brightest to weave into a puzzle of surprising depth. The novel never underestimates the reader and rewards a close inspection of each plot twist. Even the dialogue twists it's meaning as you follow the story.