Echopraxia

Booktrack Edition

By: Peter Watts

Narrated by: Adam J. Rough

Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Echopraxia: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience!*

It's the eve of the 22nd 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 it's all under surveillance by an alien presence. Daniel Bruks is a field biologist in a world where biology has turned computational. He's turned his back on humanity, but awakens one night to find himself at the center of a storm that will turn all of history inside-out. He's trapped on a ship bound for the center of the solar system. 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".

*Booktrack is an immersive format that pairs traditional audiobook narration to complementary music. The tempo and rhythm of the score are in perfect harmony with the action and characters throughout the audiobook. Gently playing in the background, the music never overpowers or distracts from the narration, so listeners can enjoy every minute. When you purchase this Booktrack edition, you receive the exact narration as the traditional audiobook available, with the addition of music throughout.

©2018 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2018 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Incredible story and even better author

Peter Watts is one of the most wonderful and talented authors alive today. The ideas he probes about human existence and everything within it are so profound. The amount of research and background he puts into all of his work is heroic, truly. While the story’s is plot is fantastic too, the deep ideas strategically placed throughout are by far the most important thing about this and all of his publications. His writing is so well crafted, inspirational and thought-provoking. If you haven’t read him yet, please go and do it now. You will never be the same again (in a very good way).

Amazing follow up to Blindsight

I see a few negative reviews that say the story, writing, or narrator aren’t up to par vs Blindsight. After listening to both consecutively, I’d say this is the perfect counterpart. It’s different enough to be its own experience, but incorporates enough of the same writing style and world lore to give more of the same enjoyment. I’d even dare say that it was more enjoyable in a few aspects, as (again, despite some other reviews) I noticed that it drops some of the confusing over-description that kind of didn’t work for me in an audiobook format in its predecessor.

If you’re a simpleton like me it may help to do a quick review on a Q&A by the author posted on Reddit and/or some related threads, just to fully understand everything that happened. …especially in the ending. Which, by the way, I felt was a great. And that’s saying a lot, since most story endings seem to be the part I usually find lacking. This one was equal parts very satisfying despite, without spoilers, some disheartening choices near the end (which were actually satisfying again when you understand why the author implemented them); but still left plenty of room for pondering and additional expansion in a future release.

The narrator isn’t perfect in one or two character voices and surely not the same as in Blindsight, but I’d say he was a great choice for this storyline.

Sometimes I like to rate a movie or (audio)book as an experience in if it elicited any emotions out of me, and at the end of this I had an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness against a universe of entropy. That sounds a little dramatic, but that boils down to the writing was so well done that it altered my worldview if just for a little while. Bravo for that. I found that I could empathize with most all of the characters, including those clearly antagonist.

Realistically, I’d want to objectively rate this overall an 8.5 or 9 out if 10. But compared to most of the media released in years past, I’d say it blows most of them out of the water. It’s up there with classics for me regarding quality.

Something I appreciate is the amount of subject knowledge the author utilizes in writing, the most obvious being his realistic biological basis for vampire existence. I actually heard of the book from a Rogan podcast with a filmmaker who is apparently talking with Watts about a film (!!!) featuring that concept.

So yeah, an amazing story that left me feeling small and insignificant. Minor blips like what seemed to be a word or two used perhaps too many times throughout the book here and there, but nothing that ruins the experience. It’s a roller coaster, maybe even more of one than the first book. I loved both; this one seemed a little easier to follow. I’d definitely recommend giving them a listen. Just make sure you’re able to pay attention, because they are thick in the wordage.

Deep, fascinating, incomprehensible

I doubt if Dr. Watts wants to be understood. At least not by baseline readers. Echopraxia is an exposition of incommensurate ideas in purple prose. I enjoyed it, but it ruined my work on my own novel, Monopole Sea. I will consult my local hive mind for remediation.

The Music is a huge Improvement

I've listened to the audiobook version without music, and I significantly prefer this version. The dynamic musical score comes in at just the right times to add impact and texture to each scene.

Could not get into it.

I’m a huge sci-fi reader of all authors and all variations of the genre. For some reason this is the first book in a long time that I just couldn’t get into. I did finish it and enjoyed the explanations of the underlying science in the epilogue. I wish I had listened to the epilogue first as I felt it helped me understand a lot of the various concepts introduced in the book without a lot of background explaining. Maybe I will try a second listen at some point.