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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Another great entry from Peter Watts. As enjoyable as the novels are, i find his extensive footnote selection (I think i remember seeing footnote 140), provides a fascinating glimpse into how a creative mind can assemble a series of research papers, fast-forward their implications , and then weave an interesting story around it.
Thought this one moved faster than Blindsight (good) but was totally confused by the ending. Who had infected Bruks? Who was Valerie working for/with? Were the bicamerals behind it all???
1/5 - Don’t read this book
(Formatting is so that folks with ADHD can more easily read my review – I’ve bolded the most important information for you!)
Where do I even start with this book?
We get it, you’re an atheist! Can we move on to something interesting now? Please give me a SCRAP of context about literally anything else.
If you came here looking for a continuation of Blindsight, turn around now. Echopraxia doesn’t continue the story of the last book. It doesn’t tie in at all - the only similarity is that one of the side characters is Siri’s father.
I made it 58% through this book, it’s been 23 days, I’ve given it as much it a try as I can at this point, it sucks. For context, it took me 9 days to read 100% of Blindsight, which was around the same length. I’m not trying to be mean here but you have to understand I’ve wasted 23 days of my life on it at this point and quite frankly I’m disappointed, especially after the masterpiece that was Blindsight. The only reason I continued reading this far is because of the way it’s written. It makes me think the plot is gonna pick up any minute now. Like just constantly “somethings gonna happen soon” and it’s a constant buildup and then NOTHING happens and it’s so frustrating. It makes my brain itchy.
If the author’s goal with this book was to make the least likeable protagonist possible, I’d say he succeeded. Brüks makes the book unreadable. We see snippets of all these other super interesting characters but we have to watch them out of context from the point of view of Just Some Guy Who Hates Everything And Complains Constantly. It’s like watching a side character’s life rather than the much more interesting main character. It’s genuinely painful. I want to know more about literally anyone else in this book other than Brüks. He is a stick in the mud, self-absorbed, completely useless, avoids advancing the plot as much as possible, and whines over any progression in the plot so much that it makes me wish the plot hadn’t progressed in the first place.
I can sum up this book (at least what I read of it) in three points:
- A quarter of it is technical descriptions of the ship, or other technologies, which is ok in moderation but these descriptions go on for ages and start getting really boring when they happen. For a book whose main character is meant to be Just Some Guy who doesn’t know shit about tech, it sure does talk a lot about tech.
- HALF of it is the protagonist having these “deep thoughts” about religion and thinking about how superior he is because he’s an atheist. For pages on end. It’s agonizing. He picks fights with the other characters and antagonizes them for no reason other than to stroke his own ego. It would be fine if this was a one off thing…It gets boring when this starts happening at least once per chapter. It’s a miracle Brüks doesn’t get spaced out an airlock early on. I’m shocked he’s managed to survive so long without getting the shit kicked out of him by everyone he talks to.
- The remaining quarter is reserved for worldbuilding that doesn’t go anywhere. There isn’t enough explanation of things. The author introduces an entire new species(?) of people (called zombies) and describes them, but doesn’t explain what they are, what they do, or why they exist. He goes into pages-long spiels about the Bicamerals and their religion and yet I could tell you literally nothing about them other than “idk they’re some kind of hive mind”. I’m pretty much confused constantly reading this book because NOTHING MAKES SENSE OR HAS ANY EXPLANATION WHATSOEVER.
This review is pretty short compared to my last one. I just want to be done with this book and never think about it again.
TL;DR: for your own sanity, don’t read this book
(Formatting is so that folks with ADHD can more easily read my review – I’ve bolded the most important information for you!)
Where do I even start with this book?
We get it, you’re an atheist! Can we move on to something interesting now? Please give me a SCRAP of context about literally anything else.
If you came here looking for a continuation of Blindsight, turn around now. Echopraxia doesn’t continue the story of the last book. It doesn’t tie in at all - the only similarity is that one of the side characters is Siri’s father.
I made it 58% through this book, it’s been 23 days, I’ve given it as much it a try as I can at this point, it sucks. For context, it took me 9 days to read 100% of Blindsight, which was around the same length. I’m not trying to be mean here but you have to understand I’ve wasted 23 days of my life on it at this point and quite frankly I’m disappointed, especially after the masterpiece that was Blindsight. The only reason I continued reading this far is because of the way it’s written. It makes me think the plot is gonna pick up any minute now. Like just constantly “somethings gonna happen soon” and it’s a constant buildup and then NOTHING happens and it’s so frustrating. It makes my brain itchy.
If the author’s goal with this book was to make the least likeable protagonist possible, I’d say he succeeded. Brüks makes the book unreadable. We see snippets of all these other super interesting characters but we have to watch them out of context from the point of view of Just Some Guy Who Hates Everything And Complains Constantly. It’s like watching a side character’s life rather than the much more interesting main character. It’s genuinely painful. I want to know more about literally anyone else in this book other than Brüks. He is a stick in the mud, self-absorbed, completely useless, avoids advancing the plot as much as possible, and whines over any progression in the plot so much that it makes me wish the plot hadn’t progressed in the first place.
I can sum up this book (at least what I read of it) in three points:
- A quarter of it is technical descriptions of the ship, or other technologies, which is ok in moderation but these descriptions go on for ages and start getting really boring when they happen. For a book whose main character is meant to be Just Some Guy who doesn’t know shit about tech, it sure does talk a lot about tech.
- HALF of it is the protagonist having these “deep thoughts” about religion and thinking about how superior he is because he’s an atheist. For pages on end. It’s agonizing. He picks fights with the other characters and antagonizes them for no reason other than to stroke his own ego. It would be fine if this was a one off thing…It gets boring when this starts happening at least once per chapter. It’s a miracle Brüks doesn’t get spaced out an airlock early on. I’m shocked he’s managed to survive so long without getting the shit kicked out of him by everyone he talks to.
- The remaining quarter is reserved for worldbuilding that doesn’t go anywhere. There isn’t enough explanation of things. The author introduces an entire new species(?) of people (called zombies) and describes them, but doesn’t explain what they are, what they do, or why they exist. He goes into pages-long spiels about the Bicamerals and their religion and yet I could tell you literally nothing about them other than “idk they’re some kind of hive mind”. I’m pretty much confused constantly reading this book because NOTHING MAKES SENSE OR HAS ANY EXPLANATION WHATSOEVER.
This review is pretty short compared to my last one. I just want to be done with this book and never think about it again.
TL;DR: for your own sanity, don’t read this book
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
The story and the ideas in this book are great. The writing is often very confusing, making it difficult to understand where people are/what they're doing/who is talking, which is too bad.
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes