Echopraxia (Firefall, 2)

I'll start with the good. What made me not entirely regret this read was the existential and metaphysical philosophy that, I believe, served as the core of 'Echopraxia'. This is, of course, going to be a brief and spoiler free review so I won't go into any detail as to what those philosophies are. Because of the positive takeaways that can be found scattered throughout the book- combined with how brilliant some of them actually are- I can say that this book is worth it. Just plan on taking awhile to do it. And prepared to be confused beyond all hell.The greatest fault, I feel, with 'Echopraxia' is that there is no real sense of the progression of time while all geospatial awareness is emphatically tossed out the window. More succinctly put, you have no idea where the hell they are, where the hell they're going, all while never having any real plot point to plant a stake in. Making matters worse, Mr. Watts speaks so frequently in metaphors and overwrought similes that you start to lose track of what's literal and what's figurative and there are times you don't realize it until a significant time later when the event it self is referenced in a more specific, grounded way (the clarity of which should have been reflected in the narrative as it happened). I finished the book last night and just spent thirty minutes on Reddit trying to figure out what I had just read. Peter Watts himself tackled a Reddit thread and even then many of his answers were either a) fraught with ambiguity or b)assumed that the reader should have read every word of the book multiple times through (there's even a point where, his response dripping with condescension, he openly blames the ignorance of the reader for their lack of understanding as he stated quite clearly in the end notes- the END NOTES- that such a inference simply couldn't be the case). Whatever the case, this book would take several reads to decipher. Unfortunately, nor the characters nor the story- full of anti-climactic letdowns- merit the time investment.In the end, I'm convinced that Peter Watts was more worried about sounding brilliant than constructing an engaging story when he wrote 'Echopraxia'. Though he states that "The professional book reviewers (Kirkus, Library Journal, all those guys) have turned in pretty consistent raves" I find it hard to understand why and the sentiment itself makes me question the legitimacy and integrity of their reviews. 'Echopraxia', unfortunately, is boring and slow and it's plot convoluted and ultimately smothered beneath chains of elaborate metaphors and unnecessarily arcane verbage (by the way, fun drinking game: take a drink every time he uses the word "arcane"). I wanted to love 'Echopraxia' but it ultimately disappointed. Unless you consider the mistakes cited above as being forgivable, I wouldn't recommend that you read 'Echopraxia'.

Halfway through the book and the main character has basically no agency. He only exists as a camera for the reader, a place to have the plot happen nearby. Every other character in the book is more interesting than he is, but none of them are particularly compelling either.I wasn’t the biggest fan of the previous book, but at least that book had the draw of an incredibly fascinating and truly alien species to learn about. This book has none. Oh it goes on and on about all the various post human variants, but it’s all stuff we’ve seen before. Even then he constantly subverts any special attributes that these variants might have, repeatedly showing them to be ineffectual in circumstance after circumstance. Really what I get from this book, and the last, is that the author has a really low opinion of consciousness and sapience in general, but shows little to back it up.if you can tolerate some exceedingly poor characterization in exchange for something fascinating to explore, pick up the previous book. Pass on this one.

This is a sequel to "Blindsight", or so I perceived it. The story is interesting, and the author really gets into some deep concepts. The only criticism I have is that it can be really difficult to make sense of the story at times. The author is so detailed, that it probably takes two readings of the story to really comprehend all the details.That being said, the author did an AMA and answered many questions. If you read the book, then read that AMA, it will all make sense then. And for that reason, it's a story worth checking out.

So yes it's a great series to read and definitely falls into the Hard SciFi realm, maybe a little to much even. What I mean is, it is overwhelming with scientific terms, theories and jargon to the point of being excessive. Having said that I still found it a good read and thankful that I was using an e-reader that I could easily highlight and web search. One, ok two critiques. 1. Sci-fi writers: Why put this level of scientific advances so close to our own time. Instead of having this happen technologically in 60 to 80 years (highly improbable). Set the time period a 1,000 years from now. 2. I don't think this is a spoiler, but vampires, extinct and brought back by ancient DNA. Like the current project to bring back the Wooly Mammoth (I get it), but in less than a 100 years. It took a bit of effort to swallow this as anything close to a plausible scientific future as the Hard Sci-fi genre strives to do.

No-one has ever accused Peter Watts of being an easy or approachable writer. Complex stories, leading edge, but well-grounded, technologies and complicated and often unattractive characters have characterized his work since the beginning. In "Blindsight", to which this book is sort-of-but not-really a sequel, there is at least a clear narrative progression, albeit one seen through the eyes of a very unreliable narrator. In Watts's new novel, though, what we have is an unreliable central protagonist, a "baseline" human surrounded by beings with almost supernatural powers, who is a largely passive spectator of a whole series of incredible events. It wouldn't be too unreasonable to summarize the plot as "not-very sympathetic scientist kidnapped into space and spends book not understanding what's going on. Returns to Earth. The end."Beyond that, it's hard to say. The book is clearly designed to be read at least two or three times before it really starts to make sense, and requires you to have Wikipedia open to follow up not just the science, but also much of the religious imagery in which the book is soaked. "Daniel", the hero's first name is, of course, the apocalyptic warrior of the Old Testament who saw the Writing on the Wall - something that's a feature both literally and metaphorically in Watts's story. And his family name - "Bruks" must mean something: perhaps related to the germanic words for "bridge" - but between what and what?Come back and ask me when I've had a chance to read it several more times.

This is book two of Firefall and is much tougher to get through than book one. Watts expects you to pay ... attention ... to ... every ... word. Important points that explain the plot are given in throwaway lines so you really have to pay attention. Even so - I had to read a Reddit AMA just to figure out what happened. And I still don't quite understand why most of the characters were doing what they were doing at any given point.A lot of the book is boring - not because enough "things" don't happen - tons of violent and shocking events happen - but Watts just doesn't write them very well - he's too brief and there is no sense of suspense built. There's no tension about "what's going to happen" - everything is almost always in the past tense.The main character - the only unaugmented human in the main character group - is not too sympathetic - so there's really no-one to root for. Quite apart from the fact that this future is bleak and misanthropic to an extreme degree.

The book mentions lots of big current ideas about the development and possible future of intelligence, however they're largely raised in passing rather than integrated properly to form a solid plot. One gets the feeling that the author started with a pile of concepts they found fascinating and then structured a "road trip" novel so they could all get a mention. It was interesting as a look-up list of further reference reading, but left me quite unengaged with the characters (who are gradually killed in various pointless episodes) and quite uncaring about the disjointed ending. It's a pity really as the author is obviously talented and thoughtful, but too keen on cramming ideas in at the expense of writing craftmanship - and we're past "Golden Age" SciFi when this was deemed okay.

To put it simply: If you enjoyed Blindsight, you'll enjoy this. I liked it slightly less simply because it is so very much like Blindsight, to the extent of sharing it's flaws, that it didn't seem quite as original.One of the reasons many people give for disliking SF is that there's so much explanation of the book's ideas, by both author and characters, that there's often little room for anything else, like plot and character development. (I read LeGuin for that personally.) Being an SF fan, I come to books like this for the ideas, so I don't much mind. However, having read this book, I can understand why some who are not SF fans really disliked Blindsight.Echopraxia is a lot like the previous book - to the extent that several of the characters are basically the same. (Then again, how much of a distinct personality can a Wattsian vampire have?)And there is a hell of a lot of discussion of the ideas and - as with Blindsight - a lot of it doesn't make much sense at the time. (I'm hoping for at least one more tile in this sequence, because there are loose ends all over the place.) However, just as with Blindsight, those ideas are fascinating and Watts provides his usual notes and references at the end. I'm certainly going to follow them up.I'm beginning to wonder though, whether Watts shouldn't get around the character and plot problems by simply writing up his research for the next book and publishing it as Popular Science non-fiction, it's clearly where his enthusiasm and talents lie. Any way, if you hated Blindsight, buy this and hate it too Peter Watts can probably use the money. I liked it.

Inventive and an exciting read. I suppose its dystopian but its also hopeful and that element contributed a lot to my enjoyment. Its not the easiest read but its top class contemporary hard SF. The ending is curious and thought provoking - like much of the book. Id sort of like to see how the end plays out subsequently but im not sure there's a point in that. This is world governed by emergence and chance, evolving too quickly to control. And Watts narrative and plot fits with such a world. Clarifying the ending would be satisfying but any ending is just one of many emerging competing possibilities. And its the journey through these possibilities that creates a lot of the interest rather then any conclusion. Any an ending in this world is just the start of another chaotic journey. So isn't an ending anyway. Have fun