Echopraxia

De: Peter Watts

Narrado por: Adam J Rough

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.

©2014 Peter Watts (P)2014 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Narration

Adam’s narration, while completely adequate, seemed a bit too “chipper” given the setting’s tone. Also, some character’s impersonations seemed almost satirical, or cartoonish (Moore for example).

Absolutely fantastic follow up to Blindsight

Peter Watts does it again. Blending elements of cyberpunk, scientific biology, hard sci-fi future tech, and philosophy, Echopraxia explores what it is to be a human, and what we have to do to learn to become more than that.

Unfortunately hung by its own petard

I really wanted to like this book. It's rare to see a story that portrays both science and religion as equally important and valid. The author did that part extremely well and I respect them for it. In addition the idea of all the more fantastical elements mentioned in the blurb set in a setting with spaceships is always a fun one to check out. The voice actor definitely put in the work to produce a quality product as well.

Unfortunately almost none of those fantastical ideas actually lived up to what they were described as in the actual book. Several parts of the book's descriptive blurb don't happen until at least a third of the way through the story. In essence the book is significantly more grounded then it sells itself as.

Finally, the primary POV character complains about how humanity has been reduced to naval gazing instead of actual scientific research. That's...basically what most of the book is. Every paragraph is packed full of metaphors and deep philosophical musings about the nature of the universe. To the point where it slows the story down to a crawl. This is exacerbated by the large amounts of purple prose. The author feels the need to overdescribe most things and, again, uses so much metaphor that sometimes I had a less clear idea of what he was talking about at the end of the description than at the start. All of this gets in the way of things like character building. We know the main character fairly well since we spend so much time wandering the labyrinthine corridors of his brain. Other characters are somewhat cursory and are definitely flavored by the viewpoint of the POV character.

Overall, bad advertising, too much philosophizing and descriptions, and a lack of connections to most of the cast undercut a very interesting concept from the author and a great performance by the voice actor.

Makes you think

Some concepts went over my head but the ones I caught blew my mind. Definitely will reread in the future.

A fittingly mind bending sequel to Blindsight

Watts is an absolute master of hard sci-fi and takes it in strange and wonderful new directions. Echopraxia is a very different book from Blindsight, but for me it inspired the same level of self reflection and mind opening possibilities, and I thoroughly enjoy Watts’ style of slightly manic torrent of facts and concepts. Echopraxia paints a terrifying yet eerily beautiful possible future for human consciousness.

Faith-Based Hard Science Fiction

Although this novel is set in the same universe as Blindsight, it is not a thematic sequel. There is some character overlap, and Echopraxia does deal with some of the story elements of the earlier novel. The author Peter Watts explains in the afterward that he was attempting something that many think an oxymoron: a faith-based Hard Science Fiction novel. In so doing he was not sure if he would be performing a complete face-plant. I think Echopraxia was successful. I appreciate the manner in which it portrays people with religious faith as intelligent. He even manages to let these spiritual characters get in a few good arguments against materialistic evolution. Here Watts is going against the mainstream in Science Fiction where intelligent design is routinely mocked and materialistic, atheistic evolution is habitually lauded.

I found the author’s afterwards to be thought-provoking and entertaining. In one section Watts explains his argument against free-will based on the cause-and-effect relationship for the central nervous system. This should be read by anyone interested in religion in Science Fiction. It will certainly advance the discussion in the arena of ideas.

Adam J. Rough does fine work as the narrator. I found that his female voices were first rate. He handles this primarily with subtle inflection and changes in pacing.

Avoid the audiobook on this one

If you’re coming from Blindsight you’ll probably be disappointed. It was mysterious and fulfilling, this feels outright confusing for a large part of it. I don’t enjoy the character of Brüks, and the narrator’s voice for Moore is just awful. I’d recommend you avoid the audiobook for this one.

Love this series... but

Exhopraxia and blindsight, two of my favorite sci-fi stories, I love the world the novels takes place in but I absolutely hate the writing. Its wordy and overly descriptive... the Vampire lore is some of the best I’ve ever read. Worth the credit if you can stand having an MIT dictionary toss at your face every five seconds.

A Must Read

Having read what a few of the other reviewers had to say about Echopraxia, I begin to wonder if we've listened to the same book. Let me begin by saying that I listened to Echopraxia before I ever heard of Blindsight, and I don't feel I've suffered from getting them out of order. They are both fine books.

Adam J. Rough isn't the best narrator I've listened to, but he's far from the worst. In any case, he seems to have been selected beautifully for this role.

I don't believe that this book intends to make a value judgement about religion or science or their respective roles. These are important themes in the book, and they are thoroughly explored. But this book isn't preaching to anyone, and its not trying to convince you of anything.

With the proper caveats in place, let me just say:

This book is what science fiction was meant to be.

This book inspired in me a feeling of awe that I had believed lost in the passage from childhood.

The quality of ideas explored in this novel is the standard to which I will hold all future readings.

And them's the facts.

one of my favourite writers

I've loved the majority of Watts' writing because of its tone and the fact that I feel smarter after reading through any of his offerings. He's got monsters and aliens you can believe in along with a brutally well thought out plan for humanity.

With that said, he's not selling you a bright future. It's fascinating, engaging, and believable when you think about what he's put on the table (and you will think about it) but it is in no way a future you want to experience even as you finish the book with feels of dread that you'll see some of this in your lifetime.

Can't recommend his writing enough, just make sure you start with Blindsight and not here.